


Direct Amends

by glycerineclown



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Betty pets dogs and also Jughead, Cigarettes, Cunnilingus, F/M, Future Fic, Getting Back Together, Medical marijuana, Mental Health Issues, Oral Sex, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Recreational Marijuana, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-04
Updated: 2017-08-02
Packaged: 2018-11-23 01:31:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 23,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11392539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glycerineclown/pseuds/glycerineclown
Summary: By the time Jughead Jones can legally drink, he's almost two years sober—and Betty Cooper has been gone for much longer.He has some apologies to make.





	1. Chapter 1

On his twenty-first birthday, Jughead Jones buys himself a cup of coffee, and stirs in two sugars. He carries it to an empty table by the window, and waits for his dad to call.

He accepts the charges to talk to an inmate by the time the last quarter of his cup is cold. FP asks about how his bike is running, and about community college. Finals are coming up, but Jughead’s in three gen-ed classes with a bunch of eighteen-year-olds who couldn’t give less of a shit, so he’s not too worried.

Jughead always was a late bloomer.

He goes to his last class after they hang up, and then takes the scenic route out of Riverdale, back to his apartment, a few hills away from the shiny new housing complexes with pretentious first-floor retail that have sprung up on and around the drive-in’s land.

If he still drank, he’d be going on a barely-legal pub crawl with Spike and Joaquin tonight. But they know how he feels about his birthday, and he knows he’s a total mopey shitshow when he’s drunk.

Instead, he nukes some leftovers and self-imposes a lonely double feature of _True Romance_ and _Buffalo ’66._ They both have fucked-up, quasi-happy endings, and when he shoves his books off his bed that night and crawls into it, he doesn’t really feel any emptier than usual.

This is just the normal, endless monotony of being a single adult. Definitely not as fun as he thought it would be. He kinda just feels like he’s eating bland food every day, but he doesn’t feel like he’s gonna faceplant into a bag of habanero peppers about it.

Instead, Jughead wakes and bakes, goes to work, goes to class, goes home. Participates in Serpents activities and social events when required—he’s not a full-patch member, and doesn’t really intend to become one. The club president—they call him The Boss because his first name’s Bruce—is helping him pay for tuition as long as he stays sober, no questions asked.

Jughead likes to think he’s pretty well-adjusted, now. For the most part.

He isn’t gonna be one of those guys who stands around talking about his high school years all the time, like they were glory days or something, because he couldn’t wait to be done with his.

He’s been trying to move past that time in his life ever since it ended. Or maybe since it began.

It still seems to follow him around, though. It lingers in the back of his brain, his poor decisions stuck in there like slivers that he can’t push out.

 

# # #

 

Betty Cooper leans against the passenger door of her car and lights a cigarette.

It’s production night. The entire editing team will be in the newsroom until at least 4 a.m. to finalize and format the next issue. They do it twice a week, every week, but this is the last print before Thanksgiving, and it’s a double issue.

She’s exhausted. She’s been exhausted for years.

At the end of the quarter, she’ll graduate early, with honors, from Northwestern. The idea of becoming a professional journalist after being on deadline or completing research projects almost constantly for the last eighteen months sounds like a death sentence.

The lease on her apartment will run out at the end of December. She’s ready to pack her entire life up in the back of her Audi and go home to Riverdale for a while. See Polly. Spoil the twins, especially for Christmas. Introduce two new editions of the AP Stylebook to the four already on her bookshelves at home. Probably quit smoking.

She’s just gotta navigate Thanksgiving, and then finals.

They used to tell her she’d get burnt out. She spent her senior year of high school taking Running Start classes across town at Carson College. Her internships and extra-curriculars got her a full ride when she transferred to Northwestern for their Journalism program a year and a half later. She took summer classes instead of going home.

But she’d needed it. She needed to get out of Riverdale—she’d fucking sprinted.

Her lungs can’t take it anymore.

 

Fred Andrews is sitting on his porch when Betty pulls up in the driveway of her parents’ house on the Wednesday afternoon before Thanksgiving.

Nothing was the same for their group, after Fred got shot—it was never proven in court, the attack looked too much like a robbery gone wrong, but everyone believed Hiram Lodge had orchestrated it.

Veronica had roared about it, harder than Archie even, seethed and cried with her teeth bared. Everyone was terrified of her for quite a while. Veronica and Archie broke up not long after, and she was forced to grin and bear it as her father emerged from prison and raised an empire.

She couldn’t let her mom go to prison—Hiram made it abundantly clear how far he was willing to go if Veronica made too much noise. She pulled away from everyone, an inmate in her own house.

It wasn’t like they never heard from Veronica again, she stayed at Riverdale High through senior year, but she made other friends, like most kids do over the years in public schools—and then went back to New York as quick as she could manage.

New buildings came to Riverdale and the Southside, and with it other contractors. Andrews Construction was run out of business. There was nothing to be done about it.

Betty would never admit it out loud, but she’s surprised that Mr. Andrews still lives next door, especially with Archie away at school.

As she pulls her overnight bag out of the car, Vegas lumbers slowly down the porch steps, and crosses their yards to see her, his whole body wriggling. Betty grins at him, and sets her bag down to scratch under his chin. He’s very white in the face, getting up there for a Lab.

Fred comes down the steps too, and greets her with a wave and congratulation—she’s sure her parents have been insufferable about their daughter graduating with honors.

Alice gets home about an hour later, sets to making a pecan pie, and sends Betty to the grocery store with a last-minute list.

She’s in the fresh produce getting yams when Kevin Keller sidles up next to her holding a bottle of wine. She startles a little before wrapping her arms around him.

“Happy Thanksgiving,” he says, and presses a loud kiss to her cheek. “How’ve you been?”

“Good! School has been crazy, but I mean. We’re making a ham, so I’m excited. What about you?”

“Good, I—oh my gosh, hey, while you’re home—” he says, interrupting himself. “Innuendo is doing a 90s night on Saturday. Me and Joaquin are gonna crash it. You wanna come?”

Betty smiles at him, and pauses like she has to consider it, but she already knows what she’ll wear. “Fine. But only if we go to Pop Tate’s after.”

 

Polly and the twins, Meredith and Jason Jr., roll into the house a little after noon on Thanksgiving Day. The kids are about to turn five, and missed the cutoff to start kindergarten this year by several weeks. Alice keeps saying it’s fine, that it’s better to be the oldest in public schools.

They run through the house making noise and banging on things until it’s time to eat. There’s a lot of makeup over Polly’s dark circles, but her job is going well and she lives close enough that Alice can babysit.

The turkey is a little dry, as always, but the stuffing, string beans, and ham are wonderful.

As Thanksgivings go, it’s relatively drama-free, until Hal starts in about Hiram Lodge not responding to calls for articles at The Register, and another ten percent drop in annual subscriptions, and how much street traffic has increased since Betty’s been away at school. With the population boom, Riverdale’s due for a restructuring of the sheriff’s office soon as well, and that’ll affect their sources within the department.

Betty tunes him out, and watches the children play with their mashed potatoes.

 

# # #

 

Jughead spends Thanksgiving Day with some of the Serpents. A few do have nuclear families nearby, but most of them end up at the Whyte Wyrm, which has a full kitchen, and make a big deal of deep-frying a turkey.

He shows up with a store-bought pumpkin pie and leaves with a stomachache.

It’s getting too cold and icy for the bike, so Jughead drives FP’s pickup to Pop’s on Saturday night. The place is still in the delicate, fleeting time between holiday decorations—he’s sure that by Monday, Pop’s will be covered in tinsel and twinkle lights.

He’s working on a paper and his third cup of coffee when headlights carry across the windows of the diner. He finishes typing a sentence and looks up in time to see Joaquin and Kevin get out of Kevin’s SUV. He keeps watching, and a blonde girl emerges from the back seat. A short, sparkly dress is showing beneath the hem of her coat, like they’d gone out clubbing.

It’s been long enough since high school that Jughead can usually come here without running into people he used to know. Kevin’s been the exception—he and Joaquin had tenuously and then enthusiastically patched things up after Joaquin was given the all-clear to come home, about a year after he left.

Joaquin lights a cigarette, smiling around it at something one of them said, and then the girl bums one while they stand in the parking lot.

His lighter sparks in front of her face and—

And fuck, it’s Betty Cooper.

She’s just as beautiful as she was the last time he saw her from afar, getting quotes at a town hall about the apartment complexes, and what would become Lodge Commons. That was three years ago.

Jughead watches Kevin tell a story, watches Betty throw her head back in laughter, flicking ashes to the side—and she’s so familiar, and so different.

Their smokes are ground out beneath boot heels after a few minutes, and they start towards the front doors of the diner. Jughead sinks lower in his booth, peeking over the screen of his laptop. The three of them come in and seat themselves—Joaquin waggles his eyebrows at Jughead a little. He must have noticed FP’s truck outside.

Betty’s facing him, but it takes a solid minute after they order food for her to look over and spot him, in the back corner of the restaurant. And then her eyes go wide, and she looks to Kevin.

Joaquin turns in their booth, peers over his shoulder at Jughead, then back to her. Kevin’s making a soft face, touching Betty’s shoulder with concern, but she shakes her head, edges out of her seat.

She’s—yep, she’s coming over. Jughead sits up, drags a hand through his hair. The tables around him are all empty, and the bathroom’s in the other direction. She can only be coming for him.

He can’t decide if Betty’s barreling or in slow motion, as she moves toward him—but then she reaches the table.

“Hey,” she says. She’s nervous, playing with the sleeves of her coat. If she’s been drinking tonight, she seems steady now.

“Hi,” he replies, but he can barely hear the word when it exits his mouth. “Um. Would you like to sit?”

“Well, I—” she starts, looking back at her table. “I probably shouldn’t.”

He nods. “Okay.”         

Betty bites her lip then, sighs, and slides into the booth across from him.

“Your hair’s shorter,” he says, like a fucking idiot, and she smiles tightly, looking down and tugging at some of her hair. It’s right at her shoulders now. “You look… really good.”

“Thank you,” she says, cocking her head a little, like it hurts to hear—and of course it does, he’s been a fucking asshole. She rests her elbows on the table and nods to his laptop. “Next great American true crime?”

Jughead laughs shortly, spinning the screen to face her. “Final paper on the rise of found footage in horror, marketing campaigns, and the genre’s relationship to truth.”

She snorts a little. “Right up your alley.”

“Eh, the prompt was broad enough to let me be self-indulgent.”

Betty smiles then, a real one that reaches her eyes. It makes Jughead want to rip his own heart out and feed it to her. He turns the laptop back toward himself instead.

A waitress wanders over after a moment, places a vanilla shake in front of Betty, and tops up his coffee.

Betty thanks her, and rubs her thumb over the condensation on the glass.

Jughead takes a deep breath. “Listen, you don’t have to ask me to join you guys, like I know you think you should, because that’s like, polite, or whatever, but can we uh, can we talk? While you’re home? I know it’s been a long time, but I just—”

She looks up at him, and when he doesn’t finish, she sighs. “I’d like to, but I’m driving back to school tomorrow, and _Mrs. Cooper has my morning booked_ —” The last part she says the way she used to always accompany with an eyeroll.

“Yeah, I get it,” he says. She’s letting him down easy. Maybe she has a boyfriend. She definitely has a boyfriend.

“But, in a couple weeks, I’ll be back, kind of indefinitely, actually—I’m graduating early.”

“No shit?” he says, eyebrows raised. “Congratulations!”

Betty smiles at him again. “Thanks. Do you have a pen?”

He pulls one out of his backpack, and slides a spiral notebook over to her as well. Jughead watches her tuck her hair behind her ear before she jots down her phone number, the way she purses her lips.

“Text me,” she says, and gets up from the booth.

He watches her pick up her milkshake and walk away.

 

Jughead saves her number in his phone and goes back to his apartment that night in a haze, enough of his paper done that he should at least pass.

He pulls a box out of his closet, takes out a stack of photos from Betty’s instant camera. They’re small, and a little faded, but they still clearly show several moments from those few months—before he shut her out completely, before he said the kind of things that would have destroyed him, had they been directed his way.

There’s one of her struggling with the janky gear shift on FP’s truck. A selfie of her, wearing Jughead’s grey beanie. Another, he took standing on the bed in the trailer, looking down at her in a sky blue bralette. She’s blowing him a kiss.

And then there’s a picture of just him, holding up a dripping colander of pasta.

The memory washes over him in an instant, he can practically taste it, because they were making a box of mac and cheese when her mother texted— ** _Did you take your Adderall this morning?_**

She’d snorted at her phone and rolled her eyes, leaning against the counter, and then told him that she’d flushed her daily pill down the toilet.

“Hey, those have street value, you know,” he’d told her as he added milk to the pot, smiling so she’d know he was kidding. “Might wanna rethink that.”

Betty had scowled back, nodding. “Sure Juggie, and I’ll become a drug dealer to spite my mother.”

He’d shrugged a shoulder, made a sturgeon face at the macaroni. “No one would suspect you—prim, proper, white girl in pastels. Charge ten bucks a pill to the Riverdale rich kids and you’d be rolling in the dough.”

She’d just laughed at him and torn open the cheese packet. “Maybe they’ll let me in the Serpents, huh? That can be my Bad Girl Sandy moment.”

He’d grinned back, made jazz hands at her. “ _Ooh-ooh-ooh, honey!_ ”

Something had to go wrong. It may as well have been him.

And honestly, getting put in foster care could have been really good for him, and it was for a while. Having a couple of relatively nice, not-too-overbearing baby boomers make sure he ate at least two square meals a day and got to school on time was the most structure he’d had since his mom left.

No one really bothered him at Southside High. He wasn’t invisible by any means—his father’s rep had followed him, but the Serpents didn’t push him to get involved with their shit any more than he was comfortable with, and they did help him get a part-time job.

It got under his skin a little bit. He had a reputation as the weird kid to uphold.

And Betty was so nice about it, so optimistic, even though she was afraid for him—she wanted to understand. He liked his new teachers. He was doing pretty well in school.

Springtime came, though, and the sunshine through the trees shed light where he hadn’t really looked, and it all started to feel like everything would crush him, everything he depended on, everything he loved would disappear. It hadn’t mattered that his father was in prison because he had a job and school and a place to live and a biker club that embraced him and a gorgeous girlfriend who deserved so much better than him.

His foster parents had gotten him a cell phone with unlimited data. He didn’t have to hike to a payphone anymore, or go to Pop’s for the wi-fi.

Having nothing to lose had been comforting.

This was too much. It was all at once. Every inch of his self-loathing and doubt just reached up into his throat and raked down into his insides.

He could not afford to feel relief. He didn’t recognize himself. This wasn’t his life, it was someone else’s. And sunshine-and-roses Betty Cooper would just try to fix it, she would tell him everything was fine—and he would want to believe her.

He needed to end it, before it got any better.

He needed to fuck up again.

He needed to hurt her badly enough that she wouldn’t come back, because he didn’t know how to be happy, and she deserved way more stability than he could ever offer her.

A few months later, when he started spending more time at the Whyte Wyrm, drinking himself into a stupor on school nights, Jughead told himself he was just being sociable.

 

# # #

 

It starts snowing while Betty’s still an hour outside of Evanston, but she has four-wheel drive and I-90 isn’t too bad besides the holiday grind. She checks her phone at a red light, and there’s a text from an unknown number.

**_Drive safe. J_ **

It has to be Jughead.

When she arrives, she sends back a photo of her hand, curled around the doorknob of her apartment.

 

Betty has a major final presentation to prepare for, a senior thesis to finish, and two more issues of The Daily Northwestern to send to the printer.

She should be working on all of that, but she keeps getting distracted. She switches gears and works on packing up her books and off-season clothing for an hour or so, because she can do that mindlessly.

Except her mind keeps going back to Jughead.

He wasn’t her first kiss—that had been Archie, way back when—but she and Jughead were both virgins when they got together in sophomore year.

They had sex for the first time in mid-November. It happened in FP’s trailer—Jug thought it was too weird making out in his foster family’s house, and Alice Cooper didn’t need an opportunity to see that leather jacket slung over the chair at Betty’s vanity.

They borrowed an extra space heater from the Coopers’ garage and turned it on in the bedroom.

There was a learning curve, to be sure. Betty had never even really masturbated before, and didn’t know what her body could do. Her hands were shaking and she didn’t know why.

He kept asking, “Is this okay?” and she kept nodding and kissing him.

Jughead, clearly straining in his jeans, had pulled her pants down, and touched her over her underwear.

He went lightly at first, just feeling the heat there, at the apex of her thighs—his hand careful, unsure. Her wetness met his fingers quick, though, let him between the folds of her, still over her cotton panties, and he dug a little deeper with his fingertips, enough to make her gasp and arch into him.

“That,” she’d said, breathless, and didn’t finish her thought.

Jughead’s hair fell down over his forehead as he rubbed her, the neckhole of his t-shirt all stretched out. She’d interrupted him to pull off her own top, and when she fell back against the pillow, his mouth was wide open.

He’d just groaned at her, deep, murmured something like _holy fucking god_ under his breath, and kissed her, wet and sloppy. She pulled his t-shirt over his head after that, and tugged him down to lay beside her. Let him kiss around the cups of her bra, and leave a hickey behind her ear.

They opened his fly together, and she watched him touch himself for a bit—it must have felt like an eternity to Jughead, but it was just heartbeats—and then her hand joined his.

He came not long after.

Betty didn’t.

But she would, later, in subsequent trysts, under his tongue.

 

# # #

 

Some of the guys in the Serpents, men his dad’s age, used to try to give Jughead sex advice.

Most of them were unhappy, though. They weren’t married, they didn’t have kids—or if they did, they weren’t far from the kind of dad that FP had always been.

Jughead stuck with the internet for the most part.

Betty had met some of the Serpents, once, in the parking lot of the Whyte Wyrm, when he needed to stop by and grab something. A couple of them even thanked her, wanted to shake her hand for the front-page article on FP, regardless of the outcome.

But he hated watching them look at her. She was way too easy a target for the kind of language they tended to describe women with, when none were around.

They weren’t all bad—some practically gave him the clothes off their backs, made sure he had a spot at their table on holidays, taught him to ride. They really took FP’s loyalty to heart, and they paid it back in kindness to his kid.

In the months after he ended things with Betty, though, shit heated up with Hiram Lodge. Mayor McCoy was bent on holding Lodge Industries accountable for who they did business with, and the club started to fracture—those who wanted to work with Lodge, and others who wanted to fight him. A quick buck versus trying to block the long-term changes in Riverdale and the Southside. Clinging to a way of life that was swiftly disappearing, or jumping on a bandwagon that would only push them farther out, as rents went up.

It wasn’t like loitering and selling weed had ever made the Serpents a lot of bank. And state legalization meant that their clientele could pay a little extra, with no risk, at a brick-and-mortar store next to a strip mall. Hell, even Jughead did it, for the strain variety.

A bag of money for a job doesn’t mean a lot after you split it twelve ways and you’ve got bills to pay.

The Serpents were on edge, quicker to bite, and Jughead started to feel more and more justified about pushing Betty out of his life in the way that he had. By the time she left Riverdale, Jughead figured that Betty Cooper was better off never hearing from him again. She needed to leave and become a big-shot reporter in a big city. He would never be able to take her there.

 

His mother remarried the summer before he started college, and he took the bus up to Toledo for the wedding. Jellybean had shot up a good four inches since he’d last seen her, and was about to start high school.

They spent a few days hanging out before he went back home.

It was Jellybean who told him he should go back to therapy. He’d tried AA, too, and Al-Anon for the family shit, but it was a little too Kumbaya for him. Too many pairs of eyes, no matter how forgiving or kindred. Jughead stayed just long enough to get a sponsor and then booked it.

He’d seen a therapist as a teenager, the social worker had required it. They hashed out the negligence that led his mother to move away, and his father’s alcoholism, and the house they used to live in. How helpless he had felt, sleeping at the drive-in, and in a broom closet at school.

She diagnosed everything he had already assumed was wrong with him—post-traumatic stress, severe anxiety, depression. Trouble forming relationships. Unhealthy levels of cynicism. Fear of abandonment.

There were recommended medications, that made him feel nothing at all.

She asked if there were any girls in his life. He didn’t tell her about Betty Cooper.

 

# # #

 

There isn’t a ceremony for December graduates, but Betty can always come back in June and walk with her class.

Scratch that—her parents will demand it for the cap-and-gown photo op.

Betty turns in her thesis, gives her final presentation in Media Law and Ethics 370, sends another gigantic InDesign file to the printer, and packs up her life. She can’t fit her furniture into a four-door sedan, so her dad comes up over the last weekend and takes her dresser, bookshelf, and a couple of boxes home with him. Betty’s mattress and bedframe are pretty new, and she’s found someone who wants to buy them.

She has a lot of files—most of them are just back issues of The Daily Northwestern, the weekly from Carson College, The Register, and of course The Blue & Gold. All the times her byline has ever been in print.

It’s a very heavy box, her own kind of portfolio. It’s hard evidence that she’s done something, way harder and more meaningful than the shiny diploma she’ll receive in the mail.

Betty Cooper already has a bit of a legacy—she didn’t continue with cheerleading junior year, instead throwing herself fully into The Blue & Gold. A bunch of new writers were recruited to share their voices, and by the time she started college full-time, there was an actual journalism class being taught at Riverdale High.

The new teacher, someone Alice had personally recommended, framed Betty’s school photo and hung it on the wall in The Blue & Gold classroom, above the row of new computers.

There may as well have been a sign with “What Would Betty Cooper Do?” below it.

Betty’s roommate, Priya, who’s still a junior, has already gone home for winter break when Betty says goodbye to her apartment. They weren’t super close, but it was nice to have someone to cook with and talk about things not related to journalism.

Maybe in a few months or a year, they’ll get together and have drinks, but probably not.

Since Betty’s been at Northwestern, she’s actually seen Archie quite a bit. His mom lives about forty minutes from campus, so he usually swings by her apartment when he visits. They’ll have dinner, and talk about everything they’ve been working on—she even got him to participate in an open mic night at a campus coffee shop, but only once.

He’s gotten way better as an artist, but he’s still not into sheet music.

Archie even met a guy she was dating in junior year—his name was Todd, he was nice—but the three of them hanging out together just felt wrong.

She broke up with Todd a week or two later, and told herself she was just doing it to focus on schoolwork.

 

Since she didn’t leave in the middle of the night, the drive home takes close to six hours. Betty stops halfway through the drive to get a sandwich, and ends up eating it standing in the parking lot, her cup of water on the roof of her car.

She savors her last hours by herself. She doesn’t have a job yet, has barely even looked, and it just makes sense to move home for now.

Maybe now that she’s graduated with honors, her mother will finally get off her back, but probably not. She’s tasted a few years of freedom, but she doesn’t think her mother will ever see her as an adult. In a few days, she’s throwing Betty a graduation party—from the way Alice describes it, though, it sounds more like a debutante ball.

Betty gets home in the late afternoon, and goes inside to have a snack and use the bathroom. Her parents help her carry everything into the house afterward—she’s tired from the trip, but it needs to be done.

She doesn’t let them open any boxes. Once her car is empty, she just wants to shut herself in her room and sleep, and she does, after plugging in her laptop to charge.

The next morning, Betty puts most of everything away in drawers and on shelves, arranges her closet by season, and then she texts Jughead.

She needs some fresh air.

 

# # #

 

They go to a park down by Sweetwater River, and walk through the trees for a while. It’s cold, and an inch or so of snow is melting in patches, so they keep moving instead of finding a place to sit.

“Those’ll kill ya,” he says, as she lights a cigarette downwind from him.

“So will riding a motorcycle.”

He smirks at her and pulls his vape pen out of the inner pocket of his jacket. He turns it on, and looks up at her.

“Is that weed?” she asks, in a different voice than the one she would have used five years ago. This one’s just interested, amused even, instead of shocked or judgmental.

“It’s medicine,” he says flatly, and then he smiles. “Yes, it’s weed. For my… numerous ailments.” It’s a hell of a lot better for him than drinking every day had been.

“Oh,” Betty says, and then she looks closer at him, like she wants to ask about how he’s doing, but she doesn’t. “I’ve never bought weed in Riverdale,” she whispers finally, even though no one’s around. “How does that work?”

Jughead laughs. “Oh my god, never thought I’d see the day.” He shakes his head at her. “It _is_ legal now, Betty. There’s a dispensary—are you ready for the name?”

She scrunches up her face, one eye closed. “I don’t know if I am.”

Jughead presses the button and inhales deep, the perfect dramatic pause—and lets the cloud out slow in front of his face, to mix with the steam from his breath.

“ _Riverdank_ ,” he whispers, and she laughs so hard she coughs.

“H-holy shit,” Betty stutters out.

He has his medical card. It’s not a cure by any stretch, but it helps. Thanks, gentrification.

 

When they turn around to walk back, Jughead sighs, and scrubs a hand down his face. “Well, not that I don’t love catching up, but I actually did have a reason to ask you to talk to me.”

She just stares at him, waits, her hands shoved in the pockets of her coat.

“I’ve needed to say sorry, for a long time, about the way we ended,” he says, jaw clenched, and he looks down at his boots. “I was cruel. I was—really fucked up. And I’m sure your mom was terrible about it.”

Betty scoffs. “You’d think she _wanted_ you to break my heart. Just to prove her fucking right.”

“I’m sorry, Betty.”

“I know you are,” she says sharply, nodding. “I didn’t think you meant it—I guess I always thought you would come back to me when you were ready. And when you didn’t—” Betty stops, presses her lips together.

Jughead looks up, and he can tell already that they’re both going to cry this afternoon, here in these woods.

“And I know I’ve been away, but I always thought it would happen sooner,” she says, and her eyes are filling with tears now, her voice is breaking. “I felt like I abandoned you, after we said so much shit about loving each other and not giving up—”

“And you think _you’re_ the one who fucked that up?” Jughead cuts in, and he moves closer, lifts a hand to her cheek. “No, Betty. I may have my demons but I still did that. Me. There will never be an excuse for what I did to you.”

She bends toward him, blinking tears down her face, and he wraps his arms loosely around her shoulders, not sure what she’ll want from him. She returns it immediately, though, grips him tight—and he holds her closer.

“I’m so fucking sorry, Betts,” he says, watery, into her hair. “You didn’t deserve that, you were wonderful. I just—I didn’t know how to accept it. I loved you so much, and it scared the shit out of me.”

 

# # #

 

It’s almost like no time has passed, like there’s not a gaping chasm in their relationship, like they aren’t different people now. Her arms close around Jughead’s shoulders, and it’s like a breath she’s been holding onto for years has been released.

When Betty pulls back to look at him, Jughead’s crying too. She sniffs, and wipes her eyes. “My god, look at us.”

He cracks a smile. “If it was raining, this would be a perfect movie moment.”

Betty rolls her eyes. “Don’t jinx it, I forgot my gloves.”

They start back toward the parking lot in relative silence, watching patches of snow fall off the trees as it melts. The forest’s quiet, and they can hear the river’s current behind them, rushing with the recent snowfall.  

When they reach their cars, Betty stops. “My mom’s throwing a graduation party for me, day after tomorrow,” she says, as she pulls her keys from her bag. “You don’t have to, but it would mean a lot to me if you came.”

Jughead shrugs, squinting against the sun behind her. “You know me, wouldn’t miss a party of your mom’s.”

Betty scowls and shoves his shoulder.

He smiles back at her, and nods. “Yeah, I’ll be there.”

They hug again, softer than the last one, and she rubs the back of his neck as she pulls away. “It was nice to see you,” she says, and Jughead laughs a little, sniffling. “The party starts at five.”

He nods again. “Okay.”

Jughead backs away, toward FP’s green pickup, as she unlocks her car and gets inside.

They’d been holding this in for so long—and she thought it would make her feel vindicated, or righteous, or satisfied, but instead she just feels the same pain and regret as ever, that it took this much time. That they were just _gone_ , for years, practically erased except in memories.

She had never needed to perform for Jughead, never felt like she had to impress—he had always accepted her as is. He kept her secrets.

She wipes her eyes again, digs through her bag for a tissue.

She can’t tell if this put salve on a wound or just picked at a scab.

Betty hasn’t even started her car yet when she hears a low squeal of tires. When she looks up, Jughead has swung a tight U-turn, and is coming back toward where she had parked.

Betty opens her door and steps out. Jughead brakes hard in front of her, and rolls down the window—it’s a manual, and moves slow, squeaking a little.

“You got any other plans today?” he asks, when the window’s halfway down.

Betty shakes her head. “No, just this. They’re expecting me home for dinner, though.”

Jughead nods, looks down at the steering wheel. “You wanna see my apartment?”

Her mother will ask a million questions if she goes home now, with her eyes all red. And the last thing she needs is for her mother to say a word about her gang member ex-boyfriend, Jughead Jones.

Not that she didn’t just invite him to a party that Alice has been planning for weeks.

“I’ll follow you.”

 

Jughead opens the door to his apartment, and a stringy white mutt sticks his head through the gap, tongue lolling out.

“Move it, Hotdog,” he says firmly, as Betty melts and coos. They go inside.

She’s not sure what she expected—it’s a bachelor pad, to be sure, and a bit sparse, but neat, and fairly clean for a place with a big dog in winter. The yellow floral couches and coffee table from FP’s trailer are in the common area in front of a flat screen.

“This is my roommate’s dog,” Jughead says, as he takes off his coat. “Spike’s still at work.”

She bends, lets Hotdog sniff her hand. After he licks it, she pats him on the head.

Jughead snorts as he shrugs out of his flannel shirt. “Some guard dog he is.”

Betty looks over—and there it is, peeking out from his sleeve, the double-headed serpent, curved in an S on his bicep.

She had always wondered.

Betty looks past him as she unbuttons her coat. There’s a _Rebel Without a Cause_ poster in the kitchen.

“You want some coffee?” Jughead asks. “I can put a pot on.”

“That sounds great.” Betty folds her coat over the back of a chair, and unzips her boots.

She listens to Jughead pour water and argue with his coffeemaker while she looks around. A cinder block bookshelf is against one wall, teeming with paperbacks and DVD cases.

Two framed pictures are arranged on top—one is a group shot of the Serpents, with a guy laying on the gravel in front like it’s a soccer team portrait, except he’s flipping the bird at the camera. She can see Jughead, left of center, mid-laugh. There’s a beefy arm around his shoulder belonging to a man with long, dark hair. Joaquin’s there too, closer to the other end of the row, doing that crooked smile thing that she’s sure drives Kevin crazy.

The other is a picture she’s seen before, of Jughead and Jellybean at the Twilight Drive-In, with a crease down the middle like it had been folded.

It hits her, then—Jughead has his own home now. He’s not infringing on anyone else’s space or calling in favors every time his luck runs out. His pictures have frames. Jughead _lives_ here. Betty had never been inside the house he grew up in—when they were younger she always saw him at school or next door at Archie’s.

She sits down after that, and Hotdog comes over to her, plants his head in her lap.

Jughead emerges from the kitchen after a few minutes carrying two steaming, mismatched mugs, and places one of them on the coffee table in front of Betty. “Cream and one sugar, right?”   

She smiles, and shoos the dog away. “Yes, thank you.”

Jughead sits down next to her, a few inches apart.

She turns toward him, resting her elbow on the back of the couch. “How’s FP?”

“Okay, I guess,” he says, evenly. “He doesn’t tell me much. He’s got two more years inside, if there aren’t any incidents.”

She nods. “And your mom?”

“Still in Toledo. She got remarried summer before last, to this guy named Glenn. Jellybean likes him, so.”

“That’s good.”

“Yeah. Despite our childhood dreams, I think it probably is.”

Betty leans forward and picks up her mug, wrapping her hands around it. She blows on the surface, and takes a hesitant first sip—and it’s good.

Jughead brightens suddenly, and he turns to her. “I saw Polly with the twins at the park a few months back, they’re getting big. How’s she doin’?”

“She’s good,” Betty says, nodding. “The kids are good, almost five, now. They’re full o’ beans, they keep her busy.”

“I bet,” Jughead says, and takes a sip of his coffee.

They’re quiet for a few beats. Betty looks down, picks at a pill on the cushion beneath her. They did a lot of screwing around on this couch, way back when.

She chuckles. “This is a little weird,” she says, not meeting his eyes. “This, um, this couch.” She takes another sip, and looks up when he sets down his cup on the table.

It’s the first time either of them have directly addressed their sexual history. She doesn’t even know if he’s seeing anyone.

Jughead just nods. “Yeah.”

“I’m sure a lot of girls around here go for the sensitive, brooding biker thing.”

He smirks a little, and drags a hand through his hair. “You’d think. I’ve been kind of a mess, though. You’re getting the pulled-together version with your little time jump.”

She can see that. Betty tips back some more of her coffee, and then frowns. “Where’s your hat?”

“Oh, it’s in a box somewhere around here. It started to smell, and then the washer ruined it.”

“Can’t say I’m sad to see it go.”

Jughead gives her the stinkeye. “Them’s fightin’ words, Betty Cooper.”

She smiles back, and puts her feet up on the couch between them, nudging his leg with her toes.

Jughead wraps a hand around her ankle, rubs her skin with his thumb. “Is Archie mad at me?”

One side of Betty’s mouth lifts, and she looks down, into her mug. “He was, for a long time,” she says, and shrugs. “But mostly he was just worried about you—we all were. I think he was angrier for me than for himself.”

Jughead sighs, eyes closed, and rests his head against the back of the couch. “Yeah.”

Betty finishes her coffee, and checks the time—she should probably be getting back. “Thanks for the coffee, Jug.”

“You’re most welcome,” he says, and he gets to his feet when she does.

Betty tugs gently on Hotdog’s ears, puts on her coat, and leaves feeling less like she’d been crying.

It feels more like she’s finally come home again—but also like she’s standing on a precipice.

 

# # #

 

Jughead stands on the Coopers’ front porch and rings the doorbell. He’s driven past the house a few times in the last five years, but never stopped.

He’s holding some store-bought tulips.

Betty is the one to answer the door, thank god—and she smiles as she takes in his button-up and black jeans, before stepping aside to let him in.

“I don’t know half of these people,” she stage-whispers. He hands her the flowers, and Betty grins, pulling him into a one-armed hug and pecking his cheek. “Thank you, you’re sweet.”

There are bouquets of purple and white balloons everywhere—her alma mater’s colors, he figures—and a lot of people. They cross through the front room toward the kitchen, where an array of food is set out. Betty takes the flowers to the sink, pulls a vase out of a cabinet to put them in, and starts filling it with water.

Jughead bites into a carrot stick and surveys the crowd. He recognizes a couple of teachers from Riverdale High, but he hasn’t seen Alice Cooper yet.

When he turns around, Cheryl Blossom is alone at the wet bar, fixing herself what looks like an Old Fashioned. It might be tempting if the bar setup didn’t look like a kitchen playset in comparison to the Whyte Wyrm—and he can manage to step foot in that place these days, and stick to water.

He’d never loved whiskey, anyway.

She looks up as she finishes pouring her drink. “As I live and breathe, Jughead Jones.”

He wanders over, hands in pockets, if only to put his back to the crowd. “Hi, Cheryl.”

“I have no clue why you’re here, but you look handsome. You want a drink?”

“No, thanks.”

She makes a face. “Really? There’s some beer back here—”

Betty’s hand appears at his elbow, and she smiles at Cheryl.

“Congratulations on making the rest of us look like total slackers, as always,” Cheryl says, with that wide, red, bullshitting grin that Jughead remembers from sophomore year. Her face softens, though, and she carries her drink around the bar and hugs Betty. “Good job, kid.”

“Thanks, Cheryl,” she says, and turns back to Jughead. “Archie just got here.”

Jughead looks over his shoulder—and there’s Archie, wearing a tie. He says hi to Cheryl as she passes, and she nods him in their direction. He’s a little deer-in-the-headlights at first, but Archie blinks, and then he’s coming over, looking a little apprehensive.

“Congratulations, Betty,” he says, but his eyes keep shifting to Jughead.

“Hi, Arch,” Jughead starts.

“Hi.”

Betty sighs. “You guys want a drink before I have to go mingle? We’re fully-stocked here.”

“Yes, please,” Archie says, and Betty looks to Jughead, expectant.

Jughead rocks a little, on the balls of his feet. “I’m, uh, I’m almost two years sober. Minus the weed.”

“Oh,” Betty and Archie say in unison.

“Um, that’s great. We have soda, too,” she says, gesturing to a cooler behind the bar. She digs through it for two Cokes, and hands one to Archie, pointedly.

“You’ll be okay here?” she asks Jughead, as she presses the second can into his hand. “Kevin is supposed to come too—I don’t know if he’s bringing Joaquin.”

He smiles at her reassuringly. “I’ll be fine, Betty.”

“Good, okay,” she says, looking between the two of them. “Wish me luck, I have to go tell every single adult here about my career plans, individually, like it’s a totally fresh story that I’m excited to tell.”

“Sounds like a hoot,” Jughead says, cracking open his Coke and raising it in her direction.

When she’s out of earshot, Archie turns on him. “What’s going on here?”

Jughead sighs. “I ran into Betty at Pop’s, when she was home for Thanksgiving,” he says, hands out, placating. “We met up, day before yesterday, and I apologized for everything.”

Archie’s still frowning.

“We had a good cry, alright? I should apologize to you, too. I know. But not here, okay?”

Archie’s about to speak when he’s interrupted by a small redhead with chubby arms that wrap tight around his leg. “Uncle Archie! Do the airplane!”

He grins, looking down. “Hi, Jason! It’s nice to see you, too, bud.”

Polly hurries over, Meredith in her arms. “Sorry, Archie—”

“No, it’s okay, it’s really important that this airplane takes off, stat.” He hands Jughead his unopened Coke, picks Jason up under the armpits, and throws him over his shoulder. “Where we goin’, champ?”

“To the cookies!” Jason yells, right in Uncle Archie’s ear, fists raised.

Archie cringes a little, and turns to Jughead. “Wanna come next door, after the party?”

“Sure.”

Jughead and Polly turn to each other after that, and it seems more neutral for them both to focus on Meredith, who looks too tired to be at a party.

Polly bounces her a little. “Mere, this is Jughead Jones. He was there when you were born!”

Jughead waves hello.

Meredith frowns at him, her head still on her mother’s shoulder. “Is Jug Head Joe your real name?”

“Well, no, my real name is Forsythe Pendleton Jones, the third.”

Polly cracks up, and that’s when Alice arrives, with a look that could cut glass, and Jughead is holding two Cokes.

 

# # #

 

Betty’s discussing Paul Krugman’s _New York Times_ column and Bong Hits 4 Jesus with one of her mom’s journalist friends—his daughter is still in 100-level media law classes—when Archie comes up, taps her on the shoulder.

“Your mom’s talking to Jughead. Should I rescue him now, or let him suffer for a few more minutes?”

She apologizes and quickly excuses herself from her conversation, and lets Archie lead the way.

Jughead’s still by the bar, and from across the room, Betty can tell that Polly is trying to not let their mother escalate this to a scene. By the time she gets to her mother’s side, it’s already halfway there. Alice hasn’t raised her voice, but her finger is practically in Jughead’s face.

Betty cuts in. “Mom, I invited him, please—”

Alice whirls. “And _I’ve_ invited my colleagues to come here, Betty, to meet you. It doesn’t look good to have gang members here, and after what this one did to you—”

Betty steps in front of Jughead, and she feels his hand on her arm, can see him shake his head in her periphery, but she ignores him. “He doesn’t have it tattooed on his _forehead_. This is my night. You’re the one drawing attention.”

“Hi guys,” Kevin says brightly, to the rescue.

Alice turns, and Joaquin is standing behind Kevin, holding a finger sandwich.

“Oh, damn it all to hell,” Alice finally says, rolling her eyes. “I’m having another glass of wine.”

 

Jughead, Archie, Cheryl, Kevin, and Joaquin go upstairs with Betty after that, and for a second, she wants to look around for Veronica. They arrange themselves on the floor in Betty’s room, apart from Jughead, who seats himself backward in the chair from her vanity.

She still has a couple of boxes to unpack, but it looks largely the same as it did back then.

Betty groans, her hands over her face.

“I mean, I don’t know what _you_ expected, but I expected that,” Jughead says, dry. “Figured I deserved it too much to make an excuse to not show up.”

“Of course you did.” Cheryl stretches her legs out in the middle of their circle, crossing them at the ankle, and she sighs, turning to Betty. “Sometimes when this kind of thing happens, I just hand my mother a copy of my grades and tell her to go fuck herself.”

Archie laughs. “You do not.”

“I say it with my _eyes_ , Archiekins,” she says, flashing a grin. “But I want to know how Jughead got the invite in the first place. This must be a new development.”

Betty sees Cheryl more often than she expects, these days—Penelope had set up a trust for Polly after Meredith and Jason Jr. were born, and when Cheryl’s home from college, she likes to take the twins on outings. She calls it ‘getting some culture,’ not ‘babysitting.’

Point is, she’d know if Betty and Jughead were talking again.

Veronica would know how to handle this—her mother _and_ Cheryl. Betty still doesn’t, a lot of the time. She leans back against the side of her bed. “Veronica would have a great idea.”

“She’ll be back for the holidays, I think,” Archie says.

Kevin gasps. “Really?”

Archie shrugs. “We talk once in a while. She said she’s sick of all the tourists over New Year’s and wants to get out of town.”

Kevin’s eyes practically glaze over. “This will be the best New Year’s Eve ever.”

 

They go back downstairs after an hour or so, in time for Betty to say goodbye to all of the guests. She gets business cards from several of them, and shakes a lot of hands, smile plastered on. She probably won’t start applying for jobs until January, but maybe one of them can help her get a start.

Most of the food’s been eaten. Jughead helps her pack away the leftovers into Tupperware, and pulls the cans and bottles from the cooler before taking it out onto the back patio to drain.

Archie bags most of the trash, and steals a group of balloons on his way out the door.

By 9 p.m., the house is pretty well cleaned up, and Jughead leaves. He and Archie are supposed to talk, but Betty knows they’ll probably only spend ten minutes doing that, before they just play video games and inhale helium all night.

Betty takes the rest of the balloons up to her room, and looks in the last two boxes from college. One has carefully wrapped flatware, and a bunch of pots and pans and kitchen utensils—it should probably just go in the attic until she moves out. The other is full of desk junk—a book light, dead pens, and spiral notebooks that she’s completely filled up. She’d held onto them thinking that she might want to check her notes later, but never ended up having the need.

Betty stopped keeping a diary after high school—she’d started a blog instead—but she held onto those too, for reference and sentiment.

She closes the door to her bedroom, puts the heavy kitchen box in front of it, and kneels on the floor in her closet. With a metal nail file and some elbow grease, she pries up one end of a loose floorboard—it’s only about a foot long—and they’re still beneath it, six hardbound journals.

If she hadn’t found this spot in senior year, she would have taken them with her to college, far from her mother’s prying eyes.

Betty digs them out, and opens the black one from sophomore year, the one she started after her mom read about Archie and Ms. Grundy. She flips to Jughead’s birthday, and reads through his school transfer, and the first time they had sex, and the holidays, all the way to their breakup in March.

Like a true journalist, she’d scribbled down quotes from that night—angry, spitting things he had said to her that were ringing in her ears.

> _I’m a ward of the state, I’m not yours._
> 
> _We don’t belong together, and I won’t be your fucked-up bad boy charity case._
> 
> _Romeo and Juliet fucking die, Betty. They’re fucking dead._
> 
> _Everything’s too much, it’s like I’m imploding, I have no control._
> 
> _I can’t give anything more to anyone._
> 
> _You can’t save me, and I don’t want you to._
> 
> _I don’t love you. Don’t come looking._

There are ten frustrated, helpless entries after that, spread over eight weeks or so, when she barely slept, when she and Archie did come looking, when they had tried and failed to reach out to him. His foster family was no help.

It had felt way more life-or-death than Jason Blossom’s murder, the year before.

She’d felt like she was collapsing, every minute.

Betty goes up into the attic after her parents have gone to bed, and smokes a much-needed cigarette out the window.

She can feel herself sinking into normalcy with him again, it’s just immediate, as easy as it was when they were sixteen, and she wonders if she made a mistake. If she should have been colder to him, denied him any access to her life.

She’ll just have to find out.


	2. Chapter 2

There’s only a week left until Christmas.

The Serpents do a white elephant party every year, so Jughead’ll have to find something funny and useless for whichever lucky bastard ends up with his gift.

Other than that, he usually just mails presents to his mom and Jellybean, and goes to visit his dad.

He texts Betty, and she hasn’t done any of her shopping either. They agree to meet at Target after he gets off work—it’ll be a madhouse, but he doesn’t feel like ordering stuff online this close to the holidays.

When they arrive, the place is just as packed as Jughead expected. He lets Betty push the cart and direct them through the store, and her decisiveness helps.

He usually gets his mom something she wouldn’t spend money on herself, so he gets her a hardback memoir, and a nice scented candle. He and Betty smell about twenty of them before they choose one.

Jellybean’s interests shift much quicker than their mother’s. They settle on some of her favorite candy, and a gift card. Jughead knows she’ll appreciate it—Jellybean’s too young to have her own debit card, and probably won’t get one until she starts driving. She’ll like having the freedom to buy things online without their mom over her shoulder, approving every purchase.

Jughead helps Betty pick out some toys and an outfit each for Meredith and Jason. There are a few screened t-shirts for sale that they both agree should come in adult sizes.

If it weren’t such a noisy place filled with stressed-out people, he would love doing this totally mundane thing with her. Betty’s easy to talk to, and good at getting things done, and like him, she doesn’t seem to have much in the way of everyday companionship, no best friends she left behind at school.

He tries not to feel happy about that—that he can monopolize her time a little bit.

Jughead knows people. Spike and Joaquin are good guys, and they’re teammates in the Serpent sense, but they’re not his best friends, not blood brothers. 

Betty Cooper had always gotten much deeper under his skin.

She had burrowed down inside him, and stayed there.

Jughead spaces out a little while Betty picks out things for her parents, and then they head for the checkout.

It’s almost seven by the time they’re out of there, and they both need food and a second wind.

There’s only one place to go.

 

Betty’s playing with her straw across from him at Pop’s, and picking at the last of her fries. She’s fucking gorgeous—he wants to just reach across the table and kiss the hell out of her.

He wants to slide over to her side of the booth and put his hand up her skirt.

The silence is comfortable, though. He’ll stay put.

She rests her head on her hand, elbow on the table, and meets his eyes. “So, what’s new with the Serpents? Any brushes with rival bikers I should know about?”

Jughead laughs softly. “It’s not _Sons of Anarchy_.”

“Well, _excuse me_ ,” she says, and smears a fry through her puddle of ketchup.

“No, the Serpents are okay, I guess,” he says, wincing. “Not a lot of work for felons, though, and Lodge won’t hire ‘em, even if they wanted him to. A lot of those guys have records way more extensive than my little stint in juvie, the guys who’ve been Serpents as a career choice, like my dad.”

Betty nods. “My mom told me about that committee meeting last year, with Mayor McCoy. You guys really packed the house.”  

Jughead rolls his eyes. “I tried to help with the talking points, I swear.”

One side of her mouth perks up. “You don’t talk like you’re one of them.”

Jughead sighs, pushes his empty plate toward the middle of their table, and folds his arms in its place. “I don’t know. They’re kind of extended family at this point. The clubhouse is a bar, and Bruce is helping me pay for school as long as I stay sober, so.”

“So you’re not doing jobs for them.”

He shakes his head. “I have no intention to get locked up. They’ve let me make my own life.”

She frowns, though. “But they’re helping you pay for school? You’re sure they don’t expect anything in return?”

“It’s just community college, Betty. It’s not thirty grand a year. And my dad’s kept his mouth shut—they’ll take it up with him when he gets out, if necessary.”

Betty breathes out. The relief is clear on her face. “Wow, Juggie. I’m—”

Jughead smirks at her. “Did you think you were gonna come home to find me turned from the emo kid to a hardened criminal? Prove Mantle right with that whole Jeffrey Dahmer thing?”

“We hadn’t talked since high school. How would I know?” she says, looking away. Betty rubs the back of her neck with her fingers, and meets his eyes again—there’s some sadness there, and a lot of sincerity. “I’m glad, Jug.”

He’s such a dick. She’s been worrying about him for years.

He nods, pressing his lips together. “Me, too.”

 

# # #

 

Betty has three cigarettes left in her pack.

For the past couple of years, they had represented, for Betty, something she could do by herself, and something she could do with her hands. She limited herself to one a day, and never carried a whole pack with her anywhere—just a couple of singles and her lighter. She kept them in a little pouch in her school bag, like they were emergency tampons.

She’d always bought them with cash, too, so it wouldn’t show up on her bank statement.

The crescent-moon scars on her palms had surely done less damage in the long run than the tar in her lungs now—but maybe it was also just a ‘fuck you’ to her mother, although Alice had never caught her in the act.

In college, to blow off steam late without the hangover, Betty smoked weed fairly regularly, too. That was more social, though—a good portion of the editing team at The Daily Northwestern were pretty low-key stoners, with high-key anxiety and once in a while, serious panic attacks.

The deadlines were never-ending, with a constantly updating to-do list—Betty didn’t know how many times she had cried in the newsroom just from stress. They would take a break from yelling at their computers and each other, about commas and photos and the communal fridge, let their minds breathe for a bit before it was time to wake up and start again.

It was a necessity, and a morale event.

She’s home now, though, without a thousand moving parts. She flushes her last three cigarettes down the toilet, and burns the box while her parents are gone.

The only real longing she feels is to get stoned with Jughead, and order a pizza.

 

Betty’s in her room when she gets a Facebook message from Veronica, who wants to get coffee after Christmas, and maybe put together a last-minute New Year’s party. Betty responds immediately.

She hasn’t seen Veronica in a long time—not since she left to go to Northwestern. Veronica’s recent Facebook photos are just as glamorous as Betty thought they’d be. Few people’s social media accounts ever make their lives look boring, though.

She’s putting together a guest list in her head when Alice knocks on her open bedroom door. She has her arms crossed.

“What’s going on with you and that Jones boy?”

Betty sighs, groaning on the inside, and gets up from her bed. “We’re just—I don’t know. We’ve been catching up.”

She nods, condescending. “Uh-huh. You two were all over each other a few years ago—that feeling doesn’t just go away. And he probably has venereal diseases—”

“Mom!”

“I’m just saying,” Alice says, putting her hands up. “Don’t let him back in, Elizabeth. You’re stronger than that. You’re from different worlds, and that’s not as romantic as it sounds.”

Betty huffs, looking away. She’s not sure enough about what’s happening with them to mount a great verbal defense, and if she talks back, her mother will only stay on this longer.

Her mother’s right about the attraction, though.

If it’s possible, Jughead’s even more handsome than he was in high school. He’s lost the last vestiges of baby fat, and his hair is finally free. And the truth is, she’s had sex with twenty-four-year-old grad students who didn’t know their way around her clit the way that Jughead had figured out at sixteen.

It was a pretty high threshold to pass, actually. She and Jughead had done it enough to get good at it. He had been so giving with her—he didn’t rush things any more than she did, and always put her first.

They were watching a movie on his laptop once, on the bed in the trailer, and he reached his hand just under her skirt, on the inside of her thigh, to tease her. She just bit her lip and smiled, keeping her eyes on the screen—and rocked into his hand a little, so he wouldn’t stop, so he would slide his fingers up.

He liked getting her distracted.

After her parents have gone to sleep, Betty pulls her vibrator from a box inside a box, opens her jeans, and slides one hand into her panties.

He’d sunk two fingers inside her until she couldn’t pretend to watch anymore, until she begged for him, and the laptop was nearly kicked off the bed. He’d crawled between her thighs and pulled down her underwear—her fingers had dug into his long hair, and he’d groaned deep into her, going where she put him.

It had always been an excellent visual, and his tongue was fucking magic.

When she couldn’t take it anymore, she’d pushed him away and reached for the box of condoms, pulling one out, handing it to him.

Jughead had smirked as he rolled it on, as he stroked himself, looking at her.

She had just pulled him down on top of her, wrapped her legs around him as he rubbed her with the head of his cock—gripped the headboard as he slid inside her.

Betty turns her vibrator up.

 

Christmas Eve dinner at the Coopers’ is rich and delicious, they’ve been cooking all day—prime rib, mushrooms, Yorkshire puddings with gravy, snow peas, and roasted carrots. Peach pie, for dessert. There had been least one storm-out from the kitchen. Alice and Hal rarely see eye-to-eye on holiday recipes, but they had calmed down after Polly arrived.

The twins barely touch the food, even when bribed with the chance to open a present early if they clean their plates. They do, however, perk up at the pie.

Polly and Betty down a bottle of red wine between the two of them, and go up to Betty’s room after dinner. The twins are asleep on the couch downstairs, where Alice and Hal are watching TV.

Polly closes the door behind them, and smiles conspiratorially. “Mom was complaining about you on the phone yesterday, and I had an idea.”

Betty raises her eyebrows, but she’s not surprised about their mother. “What is it?”

“So—there’s a job I’d like to take,” Polly starts, slow. “And it’s better pay, but with the kids—I mean, I was thinking, maybe you’d wanna move in with us for a while. Just until Mere and Jason start kindergarten in the fall, where they have after school care. And maybe you could like, pay rent in babysitting and driving them to and from preschool.”

She’s not expecting it. Betty sits down on her bed. “Oh, wow, Pol.”

“I mean, it’s either that, or hire a nanny,” Polly says, and throws her hands up, like she’s waving the entire suggestion away. “I know it’s a lot to think about, but I thought you might prefer it to being stuck at home with Mom and Dad. And with the Blossom’s trust, I can afford an extra bedroom for you.”

Slowly, a smile spreads over Betty’s face.

She doesn’t have to think about it for very long.

 

# # #

 

Jughead arrives at Bruce’s house on Christmas Eve with a grumpy-looking garden gnome from the thrift store, sealed in an old Amazon box and wrapped in newspaper. It’s kind of heavy—everyone will want to open it. He’d made sure to use an excessive amount of packing tape so the anticipation will be greater. Knives will need to be used.

Bruce’s live-in girlfriend of twenty years, Marlene, opens the door in a sweater with Krampus on the front.

She ushers Jughead inside, and pulls him into a hug after she closes the door against the cold. “Hey, Juggie. You look good, kid.”

“Thanks, Marlene,” he says, and smiles at her. “Nice sweater.”

Jughead puts his box under the tree with the rest, and passes Spike on the way to the kitchen—he’s drinking eggnog with Drew and Martinez. He finds Bruce at the stove, stirring a pot, his long hair pulled back in a ponytail.

“Hey, Junior,” Bruce says. Only he gets to call Jughead that. “You want some chili? Marlene made that cornbread you like, too.”

Jughead’s mouth waters. “Oh my god, that sounds great.”

Bruce nods to the cabinets to his right. “Get yourself a bowl.” Jughead does, and Bruce ladles him out a healthy serving. “You goin’ to see your dad tomorrow?”

“Yeah.”

“Alright, give him a kiss from me,” Bruce says.

Jughead smirks. “Will do.”

He takes his chili and a piece of cornbread out into the living room. Joaquin’s sitting on the couch with a beer, his feet up on the coffee table.

Jughead sits down next to him, and takes a bite. “Thought you might be with Keller tonight.”

Joaquin snorts. “And miss the white elephant?” Jughead makes a face, though, and Joaquin sighs. “They went up to visit Kev’s grandma—not that I’d get invited to Keller Family Christmas again. Last year was a bad idea.”

Jughead’s always a little surprised when he sees them together, still—it was stressful enough knowing Betty’s mother didn’t like him when they were still in high school. On and off, it’s been _five years_ of that for Joaquin.

Jughead frowns into his chili. “How do you stand it?”

“He’s away at school most of the time,” Joaquin says with a shrug. “It’s not like we’re monogamous.” He tips back some more of his beer, and puts the bottle down on the side table.

Despite the even tone, it hits Jughead like a stab to the gut. He wants to come at Joaquin with some righteous indignation, not for the sake of their fidelity, but just—it sounds like he’s been letting his heart get dragged through gravel since high school. No sex is _that_ good.

Joaquin tucks his hair behind his ear, though, and turns to Jughead before he can speak. “You mending some white picket fences with Betty Cooper?”

“Yeah, maybe.”

Joaquin raises his eyebrows. “Maybe?”

 

The state penitentiary is about an hour and a half from Riverdale. Jughead usually makes this drive by himself.

Instead, Betty’s in the passenger seat, telling him about an exposé she had led back in the spring, about a fraternity on campus that was drugging young women at parties, and the administration’s response to survivors who came forward.

It’s a lot more intense than the scorekeeping amongst the Riverdale High Bulldogs.

Jughead doesn’t say much. It’s nice to just listen to her.

He hasn’t even told his dad about her yet—they haven’t talked in a few weeks. She had insisted she come with, citing her sophomore year pact to not give up on Forsythe Pendleton Jones II either, even though she couldn’t do anything about the reasons he was inside anymore. Jughead had picked her up after her family was finished opening presents and eating breakfast.

Over the course of a couple hours, they sign in and get searched, and enter the waiting room. The crowd of visitors is bigger than it usually is when Jughead’s here—more mothers with children, smartly dressed for the holiday.

FP’s a bit slack-jawed when they walk in together, his eyes jerking back and forth between them, and then he smiles, and hugs his son.

“Merry Christmas, Dad,” Jughead says, as he pulls back.

“You too, Jug.” FP turns to her and chuckles. “Wow, Betty Cooper. I almost couldn’t believe it when they showed me your visitor request.”

“It’s nice to see you again, Mr. Jones,” she says, her smile warm as she shakes his hand.

“FP, please.”

They sit down. There’s a man, an inmate, at the next table, across from a girl who’s near tears, and behind them, another inmate with neck tattoos is nodding at an elderly man.

There’s always a lot of disappointment on people’s faces when Jughead comes here.

FP taps his fingers on the tabletop. “So, what’s new?”

Jughead forces a smile onto his face. “Well, uh, Betty here just graduated with honors from Northwestern.”

“That’s great,” FP says. “Maybe you can give this guy some tips about staying in school, huh?”

Betty digs an elbow into his ribs gently. “I sure will.”

Jughead rolls his eyes. “And _Hotdog_ just ate an entire box of cookies off the counter, and then threw it up all over the rug.”

“Better not have been those double chocolate things,” FP says. “Those’ll fuckin’ kill him.”

Sighing with contempt, Jughead pouts. “No. It was my Pecan Sandies.”

FP laughs. “What an asshole.”

“I know, huh.” Jughead raps his knuckles on the table lightly. “How are things here?”

His father shrugs. “They have me working in the kitchens right now, so. My hands are pretty well shot, but it’s nice to have something to focus on.”

“Oh, speaking of,” Betty says. “I know newspapers and magazines get a lot of use in places like this—so we got you a subscription to Popular Mechanics.”

FP smiles, and looks between them again, like he had when they walked in. “Listen, I’m really happy that you two have worked things out—you were always a good influence on him, Betty. Truly. This is good. I’ve been telling him to get back with you for years.”

Jughead starts to correct him, but he’s kicked in the shins under the table, so he just smiles and says, “Brought you some money for the commissary too, Dad.”

“Thank god,” he says. “I’m out of deodorant.”

 

They pull over a few houses down from Betty’s, the way they used to in high school. It’s dark out already, and the streetlights are shining on the asphalt.

“I know we didn’t talk about it, but I got you a present,” she says, smiling.

Jughead snorts. “Reach under your seat.”

Betty hunches over, feels around until she hears wrapping paper crinkle. She grins as she pulls it out, and then reaches into her purse, presenting a gift to him as well.

Jughead lifts his to his ear and shakes it. “What’s in the box?”

She chuckles. “Shut up and open it.”

 

# # #

 

On the 27th, Betty is ten minutes early to the coffee shop where Veronica had suggested they meet. She picks the table with the plushest chairs and squints at the chalkboard menu on the far wall while she waits. Betty’s never been here before—it’s new, and every inch a Lodge property.

Veronica sweeps through the door right on time. She sees Betty and grins.

“Hey, V,” Betty says, as she stands from the table. “It’s been a while.”

Veronica hugs her tight. “Too long, girl.”

They order overpriced coffee and scones at the counter, and return to the table Betty had picked. Veronica fills her in on NYU, and her fashion internship at Harper’s Bazaar, and the flight from Newark.

By then, their lattes have arrived, in wide, white mugs, with a plate of warm scones.

“Kevin was so excited when he heard you were coming home,” Betty says, breaking off a corner of her pastry and popping it in her mouth.

“Yeah, Archie told me. He said if there wasn’t a New Year’s Eve party, the sheriff’s son might cry.”

Betty smirks as she lifts her latte to her lips. “I wouldn’t put it past him.”

“He also said something about _Jughead_ being back in the picture,” Veronica says, her eyebrows raised. “Wanna give me the 4-1-1 on that?”

Betty feels herself blush a little. “I don’t even know, V. We’re just—hanging out.”

“Did he apologize for being such a monster?”

“Yes, he did,” she says, nodding, deciding not to push Veronica’s word choice. “Jug seems to really have his life together.”

Veronica makes a surprised face. “What are you gonna do about that?”

“We haven’t talked about it,” Betty says, and takes a sip from her coffee—and decides it’s time to try and change the subject. “What’s the venue? My house is a bad idea.”

Veronica sighs, and lets her. “I was thinking we’d just do it at the Pembrooke,” she says. “My parents don’t live there anymore, but we still own the apartment.”

It sounds perfect. They put together a Facebook event for it right there, and run through the guest list together. It’s pretty last minute, but Betty’s willing to bet that anyone in Riverdale with plans already would be unable to resist Veronica Lodge’s homecoming.

 

# # #

 

Jughead gets a call to fill in for the projectionist at the Bijou on New Year’s Eve Eve. Their usual, Frank, is out sick, and they’re doing an Oliver Stone night— _Platoon_ and _JFK_.

It’s a fun gig to have once in a while, but the pay’s shit, and five of the Bijou’s six screens are exclusively digital projection now, anyway.

He pulls his phone out during the half-hour intermission, and there’s a missed call. It’s from Mark, his sponsor—they’ve been slacking on communication. He calls him back immediately.

After a couple of rings, Mark picks up, and it’s noisy in the background. He’s probably driving home from work. “Hey, Jug! We gotta do this whole check-in thing, bro.”

“Yeah, I know. I actually have solid news this time, though.”

He snorts. “This oughta be good. Tell me.”  

Jughead smiles into the phone. “I’ve been talking to Betty.”

Mark gasps. “Oh, shit, really? What happened? Did you apologize?”

“Yeah,” Jughead says, and sighs. “It was—kind of awful, she started crying, we both did—”

“No, that’s good, man. You gotta let that shit out.”

Jughead drags a hand over his forehead. “She thought she’d abandoned me right back, though. I’m a fucking dick.”

Mark’s voice turns sharp, then. “Hey! What do we say to disparaging comments about ourselves?”

Jughead rolls his eyes and laughs. “Fuck off, disparaging comments.”

“That’s right. What happened after?”

“Well, I went to this stuffy graduation party that her mom threw, even though I fucking knew her mom was gonna scream at me, and then she _did_.”

“Scream at you?”

“Yeah. And I watched this _spoiled fucking brat_ from high school make a cocktail and offer me one, but I didn’t take it.”

Mark laughs. “Good for you, man.”

“Thanks.”

There’s a pause, and Mark scoffs, impatient. _“And?”_

“Well, then Betty came with me to see my dad for Christmas, and he was thrilled, he thought—he assumed that we were together.”

There’s another pause, and then Mark asks, “Are you?”

“We haven’t talked about it,” Jughead says, and shakes his hair out of his eyes. “But like, we’re spending all this time together, and—it’s _really_ easy.”

“Hey, man. Take it from me—you wanna be on the same page with this shit. If you’re not, with all your history, it’ll be bad for both of you.” Mark sighs. “You gotta talk to her.”

Jughead nods into the phone, even though Mark can’t see him. “Yeah, I hear you.”

“Your move, Chief.”

“All right, Robin Williams. I gotta get back to work.”

 

# # #

 

Betty and Jughead get to the Pembrooke a few minutes late, but they’re still the first guests to arrive. Veronica ushers them in. It’s just as opulent as Betty remembers—the same art is on the walls, the same beautiful designer furniture.

They hover near the food while Veronica finishes lining up her party playlist.

“How’s your mom?” Jughead asks. “Still on your case about me?”

Betty eyes a platter of cookies, and smiles. “Yeah, but here’s the thing— _Polly_ invited me to move in with her.”

“Really?” he says, eyebrows raised.

“Yeah, she wants help with the kids until they start kindergarten, so she can take a better job.” Betty selects a snickerdoodle, and bites into it.

“You think you’ll do it?” Jughead asks.

She nods, chewing, and swallows. “Yeah, I think I will, actually.”

Veronica dims the lights then, plugs in some twinkle lights—there are strands coming out like spider’s legs from a disco ball in the middle of the ceiling. She flips on a black light, too, and her pearls glow blue around her neck.

It’s spectacular, for how simple it is.

She turns on the music, some smooth, mid-2000s R&B, and looks up. “What do you guys think?”

Betty and Jughead kind of gape at her. “Wow. How did you do this?”

Veronica shrugs. “Command strips. And Archie helped, he’s tall,” she says with a smile, and the doorbell rings.

She goes to the door and swings it open—and it’s Josie and the Pussycats, home from a set of nationwide tour dates.

 

Betty finds Jughead on the balcony, around eleven. It’s cold as hell out, and she’s barefoot, wearing the same black dress that she wore out with Kevin and Joaquin over Thanksgiving weekend.

The party’s raging inside—Reggie brought a keg, and Cheryl a case of champagne.

Jughead turns, and offers her his vape pen. “Want some?”

She takes it. “How does it work?”

Betty’s teeth chatter a little, and he moves closer, slides an arm around her shoulders. She crowds in, too, ducking her arm under his jacket, around his waist.

He points to the pen with the hand over her shoulder. “You hold the button down as you inhale, and then after a few seconds, let it go.”

She does. It goes down easy, way smoother than the weed she’d smoked in college. Betty smiles, letting it out her nose, and hands the pen back. “Whoa.”

“It’s nice, right?”

She watches him take another hit, trying to ignore how cold her feet are against the floor of the balcony. “You _can_ do this inside, can’t you?”

He exhales the cloud, nodding. “Yeah, but I forgot how much I hated some of these people. And I didn’t wanna share.” Jughead rubs the back of her neck, and she rests her temple against his shoulder.

“I’m the exception, huh?”

Jughead hums and turns his head, pressing his nose into her hair. “You’ll always be the exception.”

Betty beams, and tugs on the back of his t-shirt. “Then come inside with me.”

He does.

 

# # #

 

A few minutes to midnight, Archie’s pulling up a stream of the Times Square fireworks on Veronica’s laptop and connecting it to the TV. Jughead can’t focus on whatever Archie’s talking about, because Betty’s across the room with Val and Kevin.

He has to do this—and damn the time limit, but Mark’s right, they can’t keep avoiding this. Jughead heads in her direction, sidestepping a halfway-wasted Moose.

Betty turns when he reaches her side, and touches his elbow. “Hey.”

“Can we talk in private?” he asks, low in her ear.

She nods, and they move toward the kitchen—it’s lit normally, and empty but for someone he doesn’t know, who’s filling a Solo cup with water at the sink.

“Is something wrong?” Betty asks, and he shakes his head, waiting for the person at the sink to leave.

Jughead scrubs a hand over his face. “There’s something I need to say, I—” His breath comes out shaky, and Betty steps closer—she’s got her Concerned Brow on, and she pulls his hand away from his face with both of hers.

“Breathe, Juggie,” she says, softly. Jughead grips her hand as he follows her deep breath in, and lets it out. “Talk to me.”

He closes his eyes for a few beats, and opens them again. “Can we—I mean—would it be okay with you if we kissed tonight?”

Betty blinks—maybe she wasn’t expecting it. She rubs her thumb over the back of his hand. “Well, you’ve gotta tell me something first.”

He nods. “Anything.”

She’s looking right into his soul. “Do you still love me?”

And the answer is so simple, he doesn’t have to fumble for it. “I never stopped, Betty.”

Her eyes are shining, and she grins. “Good.”

Jughead leans in, and kisses her, and it’s not midnight yet. She wraps her arms around his neck, lets him back her up against the counter—her lips are soft, and still smiling against his when she pulls back.

She laughs when she sees him, though, and licks her thumb, using it to wipe her lipstick from his mouth. “Sorry. Got you good.”

He could not care less about that. “Countdown’s about to start.”

She grabs his hand again, and drags him back out under the disco ball—everyone’s huddled around the TV. Archie sees them, and waves them over. At twenty seconds, the group starts chanting the countdown along with the numbers on the screen, but he can’t look at anything but her.

Betty turns to him, squeezing his hand. “I need to hear you say it again.”

He lifts his other to wrap around the back of her neck, and she smiles, leaning into his touch. Ten seconds, now. Nine.

“I love you, Betty Cooper.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it, last chapter folks. Big finish. Let's go.

Betty opens her eyes on New Year’s Day, and Jughead Jones is asleep beside her. His hair is in his face, and he’s snoring softly. The sheets and blanket are pushed down around his hips.

She grins into the pillow, and turns onto her back, covering her eyes with the inside of her elbow.

They’d come back to his apartment late and yawning, too tired and overwhelmed to go further than reverent kissing. Jughead’s thorough oral exploration of her neck after they crawled under the blankets had ended in him just burying his face in her chest, and letting her play with his hair until their eyelids were drooping.

She’d slept in a borrowed t-shirt and some sweatpants. Her dress is hanging up in the closet.

There’s a bark outside the bedroom door, and then a voice—must be Spike—is shushing Hotdog, getting ready to take him outside. After a minute, Betty hears the front door to the apartment open and close behind them, and she gets up, careful not to wake Jughead.

The bathroom’s messy, but it isn’t as bad as she had expected. After using the toilet, she swishes with water and some toothpaste she finds by the sink, and straightens out her bedhead.

When she returns to the bedroom, Jughead’s sitting on the edge of the mattress, rubbing his eyes.

“Morning,” she says softly, and he reaches his arms out for her. Betty goes to him, lets his arms wrap around her, and leans down for a brief kiss.

Jughead smiles into it, and looks her up and down. “I like you in my clothes.”

Betty chuckles, and tucks some of his hair behind his ear. “I still have one of your flannel shirts somewhere. Guess I won’t give it back.”

He shakes his head, and unwinds his arms, sliding his fingers around Betty’s hips instead. “No, that’s yours.”

She nods, and kisses him again. “Okay.”

 

Spike comes in with Hotdog while Jughead and Betty are in the kitchen—he dries the dog’s feet with a towel by the door, unclips his leash, and waves to them.

“Spike, this is Betty Cooper,” Jughead says, with a hint of a smile. “You’ll be seeing a lot of her.”

Spike comes forward, snow melting in his hair, and shakes her hand. “Nice to meet you finally.” He’s lanky, and almost a head taller than Jughead.

“You too,” Betty says, as Hotdog comes over to get her attention. She scratches behind his ears, and looks back up at Spike. “We’re making coffee, if you want some.”

He smiles at her, and nods. “Thanks. I’ll get my own later.” Spike turns then, and goes into the other bedroom, closing the door behind him.

The coffeemaker beeps and gurgles—the pot’s still filling.

“He seems nice,” Betty says.

“Yeah, he’s alright.”

Hoisting herself up onto the counter, Betty sighs. Jughead steps forward, and she opens her legs to let him between them, and leans in, presses her forehead to his.

“When do your classes start up again?”

“Monday,” he says, sliding open hands up her thighs, and squeezing gently.

Betty smiles. “So we have… the whole weekend?”

He shrugs a shoulder. “Well, I’ve got work on Saturday.”

“What are you doing?”

“I move boxes and stock shelves at Thriftway,” Jughead says, and makes a face. “It’s pretty boring, but at least the holidays are over.”

“I like the muscles, though,” she says, trailing her fingers down his arms.

“Yeah, you like those?”

She nods, smiling, and kisses him. “What do you want to eat for breakfast?”

“I’m looking at it,” Jughead says, and tugs at the drawstring on her borrowed sweatpants.

Betty smirks. “You’re taking me out on a date first.”

He scoffs, and tugs her to the edge of the counter, slides his hands under her ass. “Tell a girl you love her, and it’s just never enough, is it?”

“Nope,” Betty says, wrapping her arms around his neck, and trying in vain to keep a straight face. “I have to make you put in _some_ effort before you figure out that I’d be more than happy to stay in, get stoned, and order a pizza.”

Jughead looks at her and blinks. “Have I told you that you’re my dream girl?”

She smiles. “Not yet.”                                                                                          

 

# # #

 

He drives her home in the early afternoon, and parks a bit down the block like last time.

Betty puts one foot up on the dashboard, though, like she’s not going anywhere, and Jughead turns to her. Her coat’s buttoned up, and the heater’s on, but she must be cold. She had put her dress back on before they left his apartment, and the skirt slips high up on her thighs.

It’s very distracting, but luckily, it’s also totally acceptable now for him to look.

Her eyes are trained forward out the windshield, though. “D’you ever think about the sex we had, Jug?”

A smile spreads over his face. “Do you?”

She glances over. “Once in a while. We were—kind of maniacs.”

He nods. “We were really young.”

“Yeah, we were.”

Jughead scratches the back of his neck. “It kinda skeeves me out now, when—when you cross my mind, in your fuckin’ blouses at sixteen, looking at me the way you did back then—” He shakes his head. “Jesus, Betty.”

She frowns. “It skeeves you out?”

“Oh, just—y’know, you had this whole innocent, good-girl image, and every porno ad has ‘high school girls’ in giant letters and—fuck.” Jughead sighs, and taps his thumb on the steering wheel. “It’s like I’m too old for my memory of you—I don’t know, it’s stupid. She’s imaginary and you’re right here.”

Betty snorts. “You might think I’m a cougar, then. Never quite found your match in college.” She shakes her head before resting her elbow against the passenger door. “Sometimes when I touch myself, I think about your head between my thighs, and your fingers in me. You knew _just_ how to get to me.”

Jughead’s just staring at her now, his mouth ajar.

“Do you remember, how wet I would get for you? Hardly ever needed lube.”

She’s doing this on purpose. She’s revving him up before she leaves, so he’ll think about her every minute until they see each other again—as if he had any choice in the matter.

He nods dumbly. “Yeah. I remember.” He’s gonna need to adjust his jeans.

Betty clears her throat, brings her foot down off the dash, and smiles at him, like they hadn’t been dirty-reminiscing at all. “Drop me off in front of my house, please. I don’t want to slip in these shoes.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Jughead checks his mirrors and pulls the truck away from the curb. When he puts it in park again, in front of the Cooper house, she’s pulling her purse from the footwell.

“What are your weekends, for work?” she asks.

“Uh, Sunday-Monday, usually.”

Betty nods, and releases her seat belt. “Pick me up on Saturday night, then? Wouldn’t want to make you late for school.”

Jughead smiles. “Absolutely.”

She slides across the bench seat to his side, then, and brings a hand up to his cheek. Jughead leans in, kisses her hard, with teeth, and then softens it. The backs of her fingers drag down the line of his jaw as he pulls back, and she smiles. Jughead mirrors her face, and then he looks up, out the passenger window.

Alice Cooper is standing in the hot pink doorway to their house, arms crossed. He nods in that direction.

Betty turns, and sighs. She slides her hand over his thigh as she leans back in for one last kiss.

“Happy New Year, Jughead Jones.”

 

He can’t take her to Pop’s, not for this.

He’s also gotta get her back for that little stunt she pulled in his truck—and he wishes it was springtime already, so he could use the motorcycle to his advantage.

He’ll have to get a helmet that she can use at some point.

And he needs to buy condoms. The few he might still have must be expired. And change the sheets.

How do you say ‘ _fuck me’_ with a restaurant? Preferably without spending a hundred bucks—not that she’s not worth it. And without going somewhere that was built by Lodge Industries.

From what Jughead’s seen from Betty, she wouldn’t drink alcohol in front of him. If he could drink like a normie, that would be damn near half the bill even if they only had a couple glasses of wine. One perk of sobriety: water’s free.

He’d take her to a movie, but he doesn’t love any movie enough to sit through it instead of taking her back to his apartment and making her come. At least, not tomorrow night. Not after five years.

How do you say ‘ _I love you’_ with a restaurant?                                                                                                                                             

Pasta’s too filling to make anyone want to have sex afterward. Mexican food makes him gassy. He doesn’t know if she likes Indian food, and whenever he gets pho, he always manages to splash it all over his face. Family-style Chinese is a little hard with just two people, but _leftovers_. Those are a thing. And Betty always liked the string beans with pork.

He’s overthinking this. Combination dinners. Or just, you know, whatever the fuck Betty wants to eat. Dessert, too.

Jughead calls in a reservation even though he doesn’t think there’ll be a wait, and requests a booth.

 

# # #

 

Betty tells her mother about Polly’s invitation to move in, and she can tell that her mom’s trying to take it well. Polly needs the help, and way more regularly than Alice can provide. It’s better Betty than a stranger. There’s an open apartment with three bedrooms in Polly’s building, so the move itself won’t be too bad.

Alice heaves a resigned sigh. She’s has been wanting Polly to get a better job anyway.

Betty calls her sister immediately, and tells her to take the position, and the apartment. Polly cheers through the phone.

Betty goes upstairs afterward, takes off her dress, and gets in the shower.

She’s going to have to pack everything up again.

 

Archie, Cheryl, Kevin, and Veronica had all sent texts to Betty at some point, after she and Jughead left the party the night before—a lot of question marks and exclamation points.

They had clearly all seen or heard about her and Jughead making out at midnight, more prolonged than would have been acceptable for a friendly, happenstance, _we’re standing next to each other on New Year’s_ kiss.

They would have seen Betty push Jughead down onto one of the couches and straddle his lap, uncaring of the crowded room, like Veronica’s shadowy club lighting would shelter them from scrutiny or voyeurs.

She lets the messages sit unanswered until the next day, while she’s anxiously awaiting her date with Jughead.

In the end, she just replies to them all with the blushing smile emoji, and nothing else.

 

Betty tugs up her knee-high socks, and smooths her hand over the gathered pleats of her favorite colorblock skirt, turning sideways in the mirror. She’s leaving her hair down tonight, but she’s taking a hair tie with her, so it won’t get in the way while she’s fucking the hell out of Jughead later.

“What’s the occasion?” her mother asks, raising one eyebrow.

“I have a date,” Betty says, and sits down at her vanity, slipping on a headband.

“With Jughead?”

“Obviously.” She pumps some foundation onto the back of her hand and begins dotting it all over her face.

“I just want to make sure you’re being careful,” Alice says. “And the holidays are over. You need to be thinking about your career right now. Don’t throw away everything you’ve built, Elizabeth.” She says it like she’s not dumping on Jughead with every word, like it’s not a thinly-veiled assumption that he has no future whatsoever.

Betty closes her eyes, exhales, and looks back at her mother in the mirror. “I don’t have to justify this to you, Mom. But Jughead has a job, and he’s going to school. He’s sober. So I don’t know what you think you know about him.”

Alice scoffs, indignant. “I didn’t say a word about Jughead.”

“Yes, you did, Mom. You think he’s trash, and you think so little of me, that I would ruin my life if it meant I could be with him.”

Alice’s face is screwing up a little, and she loses the act. “Well, when he breaks your heart again—”

“ _If_ that happens, I’ll handle it,” Betty says, through her teeth. “I’m a big girl, Mom. Now, I need to finish getting ready. And I won’t be home tonight.”

Alice huffs and just about slams Betty’s door on her way out.

 

Jughead texts her when he’s outside, so she’s a little surprised to find him standing on the porch when she opens the door. Avoiding announcing his arrival to the _whole_ house, no doubt.

She looks him up and down, takes in the brown leather, the dark jeans with no holes.

He’s holding a single red rose.

Jughead smiles, and reaches his hand out to take hers.

 

He’s chosen a restaurant in town that she’s only been to once before, in senior year of high school. She can tell that he’s nervous, and that this place is a little fancier than he’s used to—there are tablecloths, and tea lights—but that’s more presentation than it is expense.

They order dinner, and Jughead relaxes once she gets him talking about school.

He asks her questions in return, chuckles at her stories of the upstairs-apartment neighbors from hell, and angry letters to the editor at The Daily Northwestern.

In his meager free time, Jughead’s been writing about biker politics, his mixed feelings about chain restaurants in Riverdale, and the occasional movie review.

Their food arrives, and they dig into three dishes with gusto.

 

# # #

 

It’s pitch dark as he and Betty cross the parking lot, but for the neon signs reflecting in puddles on the pavement, and her face, grinning in his direction.

Jughead’s carrying their bag of leftovers. He’s been trying to just act like this is a totally normal date. If he overthinks it too much, he’ll freak out.

He—Jesus Christ, he hasn’t had sex with anyone since her. This can’t just be a box they’re checking, though, it can’t be a consummation. He still has shit to prove, to make up for.

He wants to worship her.

He wants her to be a thousand percent positive just how badly he wants to be hers.

He draws her closer to his side, presses his smile to hers, and when they reach the truck, he opens the passenger door, and offers his other hand to help her climb in.

He’s nervous, but he’s determined to push past it. If he just focuses on her, he won’t have to worry about himself.

He wants to deserve her.

 

The drive back to his apartment is quiet, and that’s fine. Dinner had been chatty. He can feel her looking at him, watching the streetlights cross over his face, and catch on the clear wrapping from the rose, tucked in the crease between the dash and the windshield.

She’s so beautiful—he almost wishes he wasn’t driving, so he could return the stare. But he’s enjoying how comfortable and familiar this is, how many times they drove around after dark in winter, and as they cross the river, Jughead flashes her a smile.

He pulls up to his building, finally, and turns off the truck in his parking space. He takes the key out of the ignition, and sits back.

Betty’s biting her lip, the bag of leftovers on her lap.

He turns to her, and when he raises his eyebrows, Betty smiles, crooked, and opens her door.

 

They go inside. The lights are off, but for the one in the kitchen—he’d asked Spike to make himself scarce until at least midnight. Hotdog’s still there, though, and he wags his tail at Betty as she takes off her coat and boots.

Jughead tucks the leftovers into the fridge, and then wraps her up in his arms, and kisses her.

They shut the dog out of the bedroom, giggling.

Betty goes for his henley first, tugs it over his head. Her hands slide up his arms, pausing on the tattoo, before he kisses her again.

Jughead backs her up until she’s sitting on the edge of the bed, and places his hands on the mattress to either side of her.

One side of her mouth quirks up, and her eyes flicker to his lips. “What do you want, Jughead?”

He sinks to his knees before her, and slides his hands up her thighs.

Betty smiles down at him, digs a hand into his hair. “Juggie—”

He presses back into her touch, and noses at the inside of her knees. She spreads them, and tugs the hem of her skirt up, exposing the bare thighs above her black knee-high socks.

Jughead kisses his way up her skin, dragging his teeth the way she used to like, until she moans.

He smirks up at her as she closes her eyes.

“Let’s take this off,” he says, and Betty nods, sitting up and reaching behind for the zipper. They pull the skirt down her legs together, and then her socks, and she yanks off her top.

“Fuck,” Jughead says, under his breath. She hears him, though, and pulls him onto the bed with her.

Her fingers go for his belt buckle as they kiss, and he rolls over and lifts his hips as she drags his jeans down his thighs. He kicks them off the rest of the way, and draws her back in.

Betty straddles his waist after that, her kisses forceful, and urgent—like she’s got somewhere to be.

Jughead tucks some of her hair behind her ear when they separate, and shakes his head minutely. “Betty, this is happening,” he says softly, and slides his hands down her ribcage. “What’s the rush, babe?”

She smiles, and presses a hand to her forehead. “Sorry.”

He shakes his head again. “Don’t be sorry. You’re so beautiful.”

Jughead flips her with some ease, making her shriek and laugh, and he latches onto the soft skin under her jaw, sliding one leg between hers.

The flat of his hand slides around to the front of her throat, and down between her breasts as he kisses her neck—he listens to her breathing hitch, especially when his hand ventures between her thighs.

Her hands glide over his skin, grip in his hair when Jughead spreads her pussy with his fingertips, when he circles her clit. She’s already slippery for him, easing his hand between the lips of her sex. Jughead sinks his middle finger inside her, and she smiles through a rough exhale.

He adds a second finger soon after, and matches her rhythm when she begins grinding into his hand.

“Oh, fuck,” she says, breathless, when his thumb starts in at her clit again.

Betty pushes him away to unhook her bra, and she flings it elsewhere. Wetting his lips, Jughead brings his hand back up to fill with her. He tweaks one nipple with his thumb and sucks the other into his mouth.

Betty hums at him, arching her back. “That feels good.”

He breaks off. “Yeah?”                                                                    

Betty nods.

Smiling into her skin, Jughead kisses the swell of her breast, and gets up on his elbow to switch to the other. He looks up at her, and she’s grinning, her fingers combing into his hair.

“I really fuckin’ missed this,” she says, as he swipes his tongue across her breast.

“Missed you,” he replies, and reaches up to kiss her collarbone.

Betty’s hands push him back, though, so she can look him in the eye—she brings them up to frame his face, and he smiles.

“I love you, Juggie,” she says, softly. “I love you so much.”

He leans into one of her hands, kisses her palm. “I love you too.”

Betty bends a knee, nudges him to lie between her legs, and he goes, holding himself up on his elbows. He leans in to kiss her mouth, and feels her legs wrap around him.

Only their underwear separates them now—and he’s sure she can feel him, hard against her as they kiss. He rubs into the heat between her thighs, groaning as his mouth trails down her neck again, and she lifts her chin in offering.

Her legs’ hold around him is broken when he moves back to a kneeling position. He rakes a hand through his hair, and then reaches for the hem of her panties, meeting her eyes.

Betty smiles and nods, bending her knees together so he can tug them down.

He lets his hands linger on Betty’s thighs again, as they settle back on either side of him. He leans down, still his knees, to grip her hips and press kisses across her stomach. From the way she hums at him, he can tell that she’s happy about it.

Jughead eases onto his own stomach after that, but he dangles off the bed almost at the waist, so he looks up at her, hair hanging in his eyes.

“Would you rather I eat you out while you sit against the headboard, or at the edge of the bed?”

Betty’s grin curls up slow, and she pushes his shoulder with her foot, until he moves back, off the mattress. She scoots down the bed after him, and tosses a pillow to him. “For your knees.”

 

# # #

 

Jughead’s soft like this—not his cock, which is still a rigid bulge in his briefs, but his eyes—they glaze over a little, and blink slow.

“You love this, you always have,” Betty says, touching his face. “Don’t act like this is all about me.”

Jughead looks up. “I—” His mouth just kind of hangs open, like he doesn’t know what to say.

Betty bends a leg, though, and tucks it over his shoulder, so he leans right in. His thumbs spread her open for his tongue, and she lays back, tracing circles in his scalp with her fingernails.

Jughead starts with long strokes, from her entrance up to her clit.

Betty sighs. “You have a good memory.”

His only reaction is to continue, his eyes closed—and after a minute, he moves back up to concentrate on her clit, and slides a finger inside her.

Betty grabs another pillow, and tucks it under her head, so she can watch him. Every part of her body’s lighting up in response to him—except maybe her hands, they’re tingling, like they’ve lost feeling.

She’d forgotten about that.

Jughead adds another finger, and edges a little to the right, catches her clit from the side.

Betty’s breath hitches. “Fuck, Juggie, just like that.”

He moves with her as she rocks against his face, groans when she digs her hands into his hair again.

“Faster, babe,” she says, and Jughead meets her eyes, and complies, increasing the speed of his tongue until she nods vigorously, until her breath shakes. “That’s it.”

She watches his eyes close again, but he’s smiling with them now, eager and probably a little smug. The hand that’s not inside her sneaks up her body to tug at a nipple, and she gasps, and moans, her hands leaving his hair and fisting the sheets instead.

Jughead holds that position, makes her come like that—and laps at her gently as she comes down, pulsing around his fingers.

Betty lets out a great sigh, a little lightheaded, and smiles at him. “You’re really good at that.”

He grins back at her, and kisses the inside of her thigh.

“Stand up,” Betty says, and scoots forward a little to sit up at the foot of the bed, facing him.

When he complies, and leans down to kiss her, his face is still wet with her.

His briefs have a wet spot, too. She tugs them down Jughead’s thighs, and his cock is flushed red. After he steps out of them, Betty wraps her hand around him, licking her lips.

“You wanna fuck me?” she asks, and Jughead nods.

He grabs a box of condoms from the top drawer of his dresser, and works his fingernail under the edge of the seal to open it—the box is brand new. When he finally gets it open, he pulls a condom out, tosses the box aside, and rips through the foil.

They roll it onto Jughead together. She’s still seated on the end of the bed, pretty well eye-level with his cock. He’s thicker than she remembered. Betty leans in, and runs her tongue up the side—the condom doesn’t taste bad, so she sucks the head of his cock into her mouth. She can’t help herself.

Jughead lets out a sigh that’s half a moan, and slides his fingers into her hair. Once his hips start moving in tandem with her, though, she pulls back, and wipes her mouth, grinning up at him. “I want you somewhere else, Juggie.”

He smirks a little, his head tilted to the side, and trails a finger down her thigh. “Yeah, you want me in this pussy?”

Betty nods, and scoots back toward the headboard. He climbs onto the bed after her, settles himself between her legs again.

Jughead slides two fingers back inside her first, and latches onto one of her nipples again, tugging gently with his teeth. Betty digs her fingers back into his hair, and Jughead releases her breast, pants up at her, and kisses the inside of her wrist.

She helps him line up with her entrance, and after a couple of attempts he slides inside, slow, and her legs close around his waist. He gets deeper on his second thrust, and the stretch feels good.

When his eyes open from being clenched shut, he’s looking at her like she’s the only woman on earth—and like he might fall to pieces at any moment, with his mouth hanging open. Betty looks down between them, watches him disappear inside her, and she’s getting wetter just from the sight, and then his lips capture hers again.

He’s panting in between kisses, and driving into her slow. “I’m uh, fuck, Betty,” he groans. “I’m not gonna last, this is—I’m sorry—”

Betty shushes him. “Let me get on top.”

The relief is clear on Jughead’s face. “Yeah, okay.” He holds the base of the condom while he pulls out, and tips over onto his back.

Betty grins as she straddles him, as Jughead’s hands find her hips.

“Just relax,” Betty says softly, as she strokes his cock lightly—but then she adjusts her knees, and sinks onto him.

Gravity brings her to the hilt immediately—and she closes her eyes, licking her lips. She rocks there for a bit, lets Jughead knead at her ass and thighs with sticky, calloused fingers. She leans down to kiss him, and her hair falls down around their faces until she tugs most of it over one shoulder.

That elastic she thought to bring is in her bag, on the floor in the hall.

When she sits back up, Betty’s hands press into Jughead’s chest for balance, and she rises up two or three inches on his cock, clenches around him, and slams back down.

He keens at her, slides one hand over his face. “Oh, fuck. You’re gonna kill me.”

Betty smiles down at him, and nods.

When he comes inside her, she milks it from him until his eyes are shining, until his hands are shaking and he’s oversensitive—until he asks her to stop.

They clean up and doze for a half hour or so, until whining starts on the other side of the door.

 

When Spike gets home around one, Hotdog lifts his head from his spot on the rug, but doesn’t get up.

Betty and Jughead are curled up on the couch, both dressed in Jughead’s sweats. The main menu from _Splendor in the Grass_ is on repeat in the background, with the sound off.

“Hey guys,” Spike says with a smirk. “Nice night?”

Betty nods. “Oh, yes, thank you.” When she looks over at Jughead, he’s clearly trying not to smile.

Jug nods to the dog instead. “We took him outside, don’t worry.”

 

# # #

 

Classes start up again for Jughead on Monday morning. He’s taking Econ 101, a philosophy course entitled Contemporary Moral Problems that he’s hoping won’t just be a liberal circle-jerk, and Expository Writing II. Luckily, they’re all morning classes, so he can work in the afternoons until closing.

He’s going to wait until after the first week or so to buy his textbooks, but he thinks it’ll be a good quarter. It’s the second-to-last one before he’ll get his Associate’s.

He has no idea what he wants to do next, though. Or how he would pay for it.

He feels a little like Lloyd Dobler in _Say Anything_ —he just wants to spend as much time as possible with Betty. Without the kickboxing, sport of the future. And god knows he currently processes things that are being sold and bought as a career.

In a perfect world, he’d love to be an author. But only the very best make any money writing books. He’s scared he’ll start to hate it if he tries to monetize his writing—he’d decided years ago that his work is best on a hard drive or available for free. And god forbid he ever has to try to be broadly marketable. He doesn’t know how to write without alienating _somebody_.

He’s not Richard Linklater enough to write about love and not dissolve into a million fucking pieces. He was always too involved in that experience to be truly objective—it wasn’t a spectator sport unless you counted people-watching. Or seeing Betty get flustered in front of his best friend, in the summer before eighth grade.

Any objective thoughts he’s had about relationships usually end in severe self-doubt.

Archie texts him while he’s in class, and he’s not even in Riverdale anymore—he’s back at school. **_Fill me in here, dude. If your just fucking around with betty, ill kill you, man._**

He decides to check with her first. **_What can i tell people?_**

 ** _That I’m your girlfriend_** , Betty replies. **_And tell Archie to cool it with the protective, patriarchal bullshit._**

**_Is he texting you too?_ **

**_You know it._ **

 

Jughead goes to work after class like usual. He’s in the walk-in dairy fridge stocking half-gallons of 2%, and Nate, who he usually shares shifts with, is looking at him like he grew a second head.

Despite the cold, being in the fridge or the stockrooms is usually Jughead’s favorite, because he doesn’t have to talk to customers. Plus, forklifts. If he wasn’t also going to school, he’d probably only work the graveyard shift, but no amount of coffee could ever make him pay attention in morning classes when he had tried to go in after work.

They’re not supposed to wear headphones, so Jughead usually spends as much of the job as possible relying on muscle memory and thinking about anything else. Right now, of course, that’s really just Betty—which means he’s definitely been beaming everywhere without realizing it.

Nate’s eyebrows are raised, and he’s double-fisting aerosol cans of whipped cream. It’s a little unnerving with all the steam from his breath.

“What?” Jughead finally snaps.

“You’re smiling.”

Jughead shrugs. “It’s a thing people do sometimes with their faces.”

Nate shakes his head. “No, something happened. Did you get _laid_ , brah?”

Yeah, he fucking did. Jughead’s not gonna give him the satisfaction of an answer, though. “Put away that fucking Reddi Whip, Nate.”

“We’re literally in an icebox. It’s not gonna go bad between here and the shelf. Do I know her?” When Jughead ignores him, moving on to the skim milk, Nate says, “I bet I know her. Did she go to Southside?”

“No.”

Nate gasps. “So it _is_ a girl!”

“Oh my god,” Jughead says, and scowls, as much as you can when you’re stocking dairy. “I’m in a biker gang, dude. I know how to kill you.”

“That’s the emptiest threat I’ve ever heard. You’re in _love_.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Jughead says.

He’s smiling again by the time he’s putting sale prices on the leftover bottles of peppermint eggnog.

 

# # #

 

Betty’s on her knees in front of the open refrigerator, emptying a box of food from Polly’s old fridge into the new one. The chill feels good after lugging boxes and furniture down halls and into an elevator for most of two hours. Besides the twins’ bunk beds, which could be separated into a few parts with the help of a drill, Polly’s bedframe and full-size mattress had been the worst part. Hal had come over to help, too, but he had to get back to the office after they got most of the furniture into the right rooms.

It’s a nice building, built a few years before the Lodges came to town. Betty’s been there a few times to see her sister and the twins since they moved in, and she’d gone with them to view the apartment before Polly signed the rental agreement.

The three-bedroom is white, and clean, with rather small windows, and a decent kitchen. Polly’s new position will start mid-January, so Betty doesn’t need to join them right away.

Jughead comes up behind her, and fans himself with the open door. “How much are you gonna love me after we do this again next weekend?”

Betty turns from the crisper, and holds her thumb and forefinger about an inch apart. “This much?”

Shaking his head, Jughead gives her a major stinkeye.

She edges her thumb and forefinger as far apart as they can go, squinting at him.

“You’ve got a lotta nerve, woman.” He tugs Betty to her feet, and she squawks, before wrapping her arms around his neck.

“You are so _strong_ and _handsome_ ,” she says, giggling and kissing him. “I’m so lucky.”

“Uh-huh,” Jughead says, nodding.

There’s a crash from the kids’ new room—Polly calls, “I’m fine!” before they can ask—and then she comes out into the kitchen glumly, holding a very crooked polka-dotted lamp. “I think I broke it.”

 

Over the next few days, Betty packs her things back into bags and boxes.

“I’m so excited to have a grown-up around to talk to,” Polly says over the phone, when Betty calls to ask how much of her kitchen stuff she should bring. “And god, I haven’t fixed real food in _ages_ —everything’s been so _bland_ for Mere and Jason’s sensitive little palates.”

Betty cleans out her closet, too—she hadn’t brought _all_ of her clothes to college, and should probably donate whatever she hasn’t worn in years.

Jughead’s flannel is in a box in the back, where Betty had left it in high school, waiting for him to come back to her. It’s a deep grey-green, with navy and thin white cross-stripes. It doesn’t smell like him anymore. She almost can’t believe how much more open and vulnerable he is now, compared to when she last saw him wearing it, hanging out in her room on a school night, guarded and twitchy even as he loved her.

When Jughead comes by in FP’s pickup to help her move, she opens the door in his flannel, with the sleeves rolled to her elbows.

Jughead grins and kisses her soundly.

They take the drawers out of her dresser and move it down the stairs first, followed by her vanity, stand-up mirror, and bedside table. They’re kind of boring, but maybe she’ll paint them.

She’d thought about about leaving the twin bed from her childhood behind and getting a bigger one like what she had in college, but she probably won’t be having much sex in her own bedroom now that her sister and the little ones will be on the other side of the wall.

That’s what her boyfriend’s bed is for.

 

# # #

 

Jughead’s writing his work schedule out for the next two weeks in his day planner, below exam dates and class assignments, and he flips ahead to January 31.

That’ll be two years since he’s had a drop of alcohol—since rock bottom, really.

Jughead had aged out of the foster system in October of senior year, and eked his way through to graduation on his own. By the next fall, while his peers were out having freshman-in-college adventures, he was drinking more than ever.

Jughead didn’t have expensive taste; he’d kept to the cheap shit, as if that made it better. Usually he walked to the Whyte Wyrm after he got back from work, so he could stumble home and maybe get hit by a truck. He had bottles at home, of course, but he was getting pretty good at pool. His skin and clothes had started to stink, and after a while he realized why that was so familiar—he smelled like his dad.

He’d driven on January 29th, though, and started a fight with the bouncer, who was holding onto his keys. Got the shit beat out of him. Bruce had seen the whole thing, too—and privately, Jughead always thought Bruce felt responsible for not looking out more, for not putting his foot down way sooner.

Making sure someone doesn’t drive home drunk doesn’t mean they won’t die at the bottle.

Bruce and Marlene put him in rehab for three weeks on their own dime, and when he came back, all of his shit was in boxes in Bruce’s basement. Their futon was unfolded, with sheets on it.

He didn’t think it would stick. Nobody goes to rehab _once_ —nobody with any money and an actual problem, anyway. His dad certainly wouldn’t have been one and done.

Jughead went to a few meetings after rehab, and found Mark, who always spoke a lot about trauma, that it’s often more responsible for the addict than the drug itself. They talked for long hours, early on, over the phone as well as in person. It was a lot of free therapy—had Mark been a licensed psychiatrist, Jughead could easily owe him five grand.

Mark’s got a decade sober, and an older half-brother who OD’ed on heroin in 2005. Their dad was an alcoholic too, but not nearly as passive about it as FP. He and Jughead both carried a lot of the same hypervigilant, flinching, parenting-the-parent baggage.

Mark told him that if he really wanted to stop drinking, then Jughead needed to mourn the loss of his mom and dad, even though neither of them were dead. There was so much injustice that he didn’t think he would feel much worse if they were actually six feet under. He had to expel them.

Jellybean was different. She was another victim of it, and he missed her—they talk on the phone every few weeks, but hadn’t ever spent enough time together since their mom left. She was old enough to remember everything, to remember finding half-empty bottles in the bookshelf when FP was supposedly sober, and hiding with her hands over her ears under Jughead’s bed, while their parents screamed at each other.

When his mom remarried, Jughead was still getting back on his feet, with a few months clean and a really shitty job. Mark had teased out of him a lot of the fury and tears he’d been holding in for years, about being left behind, unwanted—like that was a choice a mother should have been allowed to make.

And it sounds so fucking corny, but he wrote both his parents letters he would never send, and then he wrote the ones he would like to receive back. They’re in an unmarked folder on his laptop, and writing them made him feel better. That was Mark’s idea.

Jughead hadn’t even told his mom that he’d gone to rehab—and he’d made Bruce and Marlene promise not to say anything.

In return, they made him promise to go to school in the fall. And only a little grudgingly, he went.

It was a breeze to get decent grades in community college—there wasn’t much busy work, and no one gave a shit about cliques. It wasn’t at all like high school, and none of the students or teachers knew him, due in large part to being two years off a normal academic schedule.

They treated him like an adult. He could just—exist, there.

He was already halfway through freshman year before he finally told Mark the story of his high school romance with Betty Cooper, and how he broke her heart. He’s the only one who knows everything—beyond Betty, and whoever she told, anyway.

Mark had wanted him to reach out sooner, to apologize and give them both some closure, but Jughead felt like he would only disrupt her. Betty _always_ had enough on her plate. He’d been a coward, too, of course. Talking to Betty was confronting a personal failure, and supreme guilt—not his own victimization. Her being out of town had been a convenient excuse to ignore it.

And now that’s been dealt with too, but he could actually face her when he did it.

They could heal _together_.

When he’s staring at his ceiling, after texting her goodnight, he realizes that Betty’s probably going to want to throw him a party again, and this time _actually_ inner circle. She’ll probably say, with complete earnestness, “Two years sober is such a huge accomplishment, Jug, I’m so proud of you! We should celebrate it!”

She’ll probably want to bake a cake, and put a gaudy kids’ birthday candle on top, in the shape of a 2.

He’ll probably have to let her.

 

# # #

 

On the eve of Polly’s first day at her new job, she goes with Betty to pick up the kids. As they park and walk into the school, Polly keeps a hushed running commentary about some of the other moms, all of whom are _much_ older, and from the way Polly puts it, never hesitate to remind her of that fact.

In the classroom, amongst the other kids and a few parents, they spot the twins putting primary-colored blocks away into a box. There’s a sign-out sheet by the door, and a pen attached with string.

“So, you sign them in and out every day, it’s pretty self-explanatory,” Polly says. “Mere, Jason!” she calls over her shoulder, and they look up.

By the time the twins get to their mother’s side, their teacher has finished talking to another parent, and Polly smiles, waving at her. “Miss Caroline, this is my sister, Betty. She’ll be helping with Meredith and Jason for the next few months.”

Miss Caroline comes over, and shakes Betty’s hand. “That’s great, it’s nice to meet you. They told me that you’re moving in, too.”

“That’s right,” Betty says, smiling.

For the first time, she feels like maybe she’s bit off more than she can chew. This experience will probably completely inform whether or not she ever wants children, that’s for sure—even though she’s always thought she’d be good at it.

Better than her mother, anyway.

Betty signs the kids out, and she and Polly each grab one of their hands as they walk out to the parking lot.

“How was school today?” Polly asks.

“Fine,” Meredith says. “I got a cat sticker.”

When Jason doesn’t respond, Betty looks down at him. “Jason? What about you?”

“I told Miss Caroline about the weather,” Jason says with a sigh, and bends to pick up a twig on the sidewalk.

Betty opens the back door to her car, and Meredith and Jason scramble into the back seat. They clearly know how to buckle themselves in—she had bought the same boosters that Polly has in her car—but Betty checks their restraints anyway.

 

The next day, after Polly has made them all breakfast and then left for work, and Betty has dropped Meredith and Jason off at preschool, Betty finally has the apartment to herself. She puts a few more finishing touches on her bedroom, and hangs a couple of pictures.

She sits down with her laptop after that, and opens her resume, making some post-graduation adjustments. She scrolls through a few job boards, too, and the websites for some local papers.

It had been her plan initially to take a few months off. On a normal schedule, she wouldn’t even graduate until the end of spring quarter. It was part of the reason she was so on-board to move in with Polly—to have something to do, and to get out from under her parents’ roof.

She’s feeling the itch again, though, like her hands are trying to juggle without balls. She needs a project.

The Register is a given, of course. She’ll always be welcome there. But it doesn’t feel like a challenge anymore—she’s done too much to just graduate from college and work for her parents. A few reputable papers and news sites in Cleveland and Chicago are looking for remote freelancers, so she sends out applications, and emails her contacts there, fingers crossed.

Two afternoons later, while she’s cutting peanut butter and jelly sandwiches into triangles for the twins, her phone pings with an email to schedule a phone interview.

 

# # #

 

On Friday night, after Jughead gets back from work, he takes a shower and brushes his teeth.

Bruce keeps texting him—he wants to meet Betty, and they’ve been invited to dinner in a couple weeks. Mark’s been pestering him about her too.

Betty calls when she’s outside. He buzzes her into his building, and meets her at his apartment door with a smile and a kiss. She pulls a short stack of DVDs out of her purse, but they’re for eventually, not for tonight—he has work in the morning, and they’ve got sex to have.

They spill onto his bed and pull each other’s clothes off, mark each other up a little with saliva and fingertips. It’s slow, but determined—she grins when he manhandles her a little, and Jughead’s thumb is relentless at her clit as she rides him again. Betty comes on his cock with her teeth set on the skin under his ear, and then she strips off the condom, and sucks him into her mouth.

When Betty and Jughead emerge from the bedroom some twenty minutes later, Spike’s eating Cheetos on the couch with Hotdog, and watching Netflix.

They get high, and order Domino’s.

 

 

 

 

 

 

**SIX MONTHS LATER**

Jughead arrives at the park by Sweetwater River a few minutes late, with his sister Jellybean on the back of his bike. Betty’s waiting for them on the curb, in her purple cap and gown.

It’s relatively early in the morning, so that they can use the lot before it fills up with boy scouts and parkgoers. He asshole-parks next to Betty’s car, flips the kickstand on his motorcycle, and waits for Jellybean to climb down.

She’d demanded on spending the first week of her summer break back in Riverdale with her big brother, and going to visit their dad. Jughead had jumped at the chance to hang out with her, and even paid for one of the bus tickets.

Once she’s on the pavement, Jellybean undoes the chin strap on Betty’s helmet, and pulls it off with a grimace. “I think my head’s bigger than yours, Betty.”

Betty snorts, her tassel bobbing. “Good.”

Jughead removes his helmet too, and shakes out his hair, smiling. “Hi, gorgeous. I happen to like your head.”

Jellybean makes a gagging noise. Betty just rolls her eyes at him, but he catches her watching his ass as he dismounts smoothly from the bike. His whole attempt at a James Dean thing _totally_ works on her.

Jughead pulls a pair of sunglasses from the inside pocket of his leather jacket and slides them on. “You look radiant,” he says, tugging at Betty’s crimson honor cord for Journalism. “So collegiate. I can hardly look at you.”

She smiles and twirls, the cheap purple fabric shining in the morning sun.

Northwestern’s commencement ceremony had been held the week before. Jughead had cheered so loud when Betty’s name was called, she said she could pick his voice out of the crowd immediately, even through the nerves of walking across the stage. The audience had been asked to reserve their applause until the end, but rules like that had never held Jughead Jones back.

She had taken formal photos with her parents in front of some of the old architecture on campus, but she’s had an image in her head for weeks of the graduation photos she really wants—riding on the back of Jughead’s motorcycle with her purple gown open, flowing in the wind behind her.

Betty has access to a nice DSLR through the Register, and Jellybean’s developed a decent eye for photography. They had thought about several locations, but end up at Sweetwater River for the trees, and the parking lot—a helmet would ruin the effect.

Jughead just finished his Associate’s, too. He didn’t want to walk at his graduation, he didn’t feel particularly attached to the school—and it’s not like his dad can be there. Betty was disappointed, but didn’t push it.

Jellybean huffs. “So, are we gonna take pictures, or are you guys gonna be mushy all day?”

Betty takes the camera bag from her backpack and unzips it, pulling out the DSLR. “Now, be careful with this, obviously,” she says, looping the camera strap over Jellybean’s neck and one shoulder. “It’s probably worth as much as my car to replace it new.”

Jellybean handles the camera delicately, and removes the lens cap, checking out the settings. “Over there, you think?” she says, pointing to a group of evergreens on the other side of the lot, where the sunlight isn’t as direct, and won’t wash them out. “I’ll go take some test shots.”

Jughead watches her walk away, and turns back to Betty, who’s sliding her hand into the crook of his elbow. “I’m glad you guys get along.”

Shrugging, Betty smiles at him. “She’s a cool kid.”

“Yeah, she is,” Jughead says. “I feel like I hardly know her anymore, though.”

Betty pokes his shoulder with the corner of her cap, and gestures to the bike. “Whaddaya say, should we go give her a couple of hot models?”

Jughead groans, and steps away from her to swing his leg over the seat. “The things I do for you.”

Betty zips the camera bag back into her backpack, and locks it and their helmets in the backseat of her car. She turns back to Jughead as he starts the engine.

Betty had been afraid of the bike for a while, no matter how fun she thought it would be—everything Alice Cooper had ever said about motorcycles echoed in her head. The roar of the engine drowned her mom out, though, as did the fitted body armor they saved up for. Jughead was always very careful, and he didn’t take the bike on the highway much—speed is what’ll take an inch of skin off.

Betty gets on behind him, closing her arms securely around his chest. They loop around to the other side of the lot, where Jellybean is crouching in the grass.

The first photos are from in front of the handlebars—his arms and legs are outstretched, keeping the bike steady, with Betty’s hands gripping Jughead’s shoulders as she stands up behind him on the pegs. And then her arms sink down around his neck, and he smiles into her cheek kiss, her cap obscuring his face.

There’s a side view after that—Jughead makes slow ovals around his sister, and Betty’s unzipped her gown, and stretched her arms out to let it flow behind her like a cape, her tassel waving in her periphery.

Jellybean takes candid shots, too, when they get off the bike, of Jughead helping fix Betty’s hair after they remove her graduation cap, along with a handful of bobby pins.

Betty works Jughead’s hair over too, running her fingers through it until it’s sufficiently curling over his forehead.

“This is gross,” Jellybean says, looking down at the screen. “You guys are gonna be so popular on Facebook.” She turns the camera around, and holds it up to let them see.

Jughead snorts. “Bruce is gonna shit himself.”

Betty takes her purple gown off too, revealing jeans and a t-shirt. They get back on the motorcycle, and Betty brings her knees up around Jughead’s hips, rests the side of her head against his upper back.

Their photographer shakes her head and flicks some of Betty’s hair over her shoulder. “That’s better. And smile, Jug,” she says.

Jughead smirks over his shoulder at Betty, sliding his fingers under her knee, and in return, her hands come up to tug at the shoulders of his jacket.

“Take this off, babe,” she says.

The camera snaps away as Betty tugs the leather down, until it catches on his elbows.

“This is disgusting,” Jellybean says. “You’re both _way_ too cute.”

Betty laughs into Jughead’s shoulder, and kisses the back of his neck. “I think so too.”

People begin trickling into the park while they’re wrapping up, and they abandon the bike to sit in the grass and scan through the photos, pointing out the ones they like, and balking at others.

“I’m hungry,” Jellybean says, while Betty’s going through them a third time and zooming in on some, with Jughead’s chin propped on her shoulder. “You said we could go to Pop’s after.”

Jughead chuckles, and nods. “Okay.”

 

Jughead’s last piece of buttered sourdough toast is glistening on his plate, next to the remnants of two eggs, sunny-side up.

His arm is behind Betty, on the backrest of their booth, and across from them, his little sister’s chattering away about her— _their_ , technically—stepdad Glenn, and his obsession with Ancient Egypt.  

Pop Tate comes by to top up Betty and Jughead’s coffee, and the two of them smile and thank him in unison.

They’ve made it through their first springtime, intact.

They’re starting their first summer.

It’s not perfect. Jughead’s not. He’ll never have the kind of easy confidence that comes with a nice upbringing—he’ll always be a side-eyeing, smart-mouthed asshole when he’s in a corner. Betty loves him, though, he can feel it in his bones, even if he won’t ever _really_ believe he’s good enough for her—that anyone is. At least he’s learned how to fuckin’ relax, though. He’s gonna take what he can get.

And the only deceit between them is gonna be about whether or not he loves her cooking, despite eating every bite—and maybe omissions about near-misses on the bike.  

Betty’s not perfect either. She’s bummed cigarettes off the Serpents a couple of times. She doesn’t know how to tell Polly that the kids are a lot to handle, or how to say no to people who aren’t her mother. She takes care of herself last, and doesn’t always tell him when she’s overwhelmed.

And _they’re_ not perfect, even if they feel that way in the moment, even if they’re about to look it on social media.

But they’re working on it. Not perfection, but peace of mind.

 

# # #

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bughead fandom, thank you so much for coming on this journey with me, and sharing your enthusiasm. I'm sad to finish up this fic, and I hope you'll come at me with ideas in the future, although I make no promises. In particular, thank you to [**raptorlily**](http://raptorlily.tumblr.com) for the warm welcome, for your help with the last chapter, and for everything you do for our little community. 
> 
> And as always, you can find me on [tumblr](http://glycerineclown.tumblr.com).


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